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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE AUTOCRAT 

OF 

THE BREAKFAST- TABLE 

BY 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

BY 

RICHARD BU'RTON 



Every man his own Boswell 



J 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 



62 

wary of Congress 

|Two Copses Received 
OCT 171900 

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Copyright, 1900, 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The particular work of a writer may be called his 
finest for several reasons. It has — whether justly 
or no — come to be regarded as most expressive 
of his essential gift ; or it is the most successful ac- 
complishment in a form of art more important and 
difficult than he elsewhere attempted with a like result ; 
or, again, it is most clearly stamped with the impress 
of his time and country — and hence is a work truly 
national. Doubtless such a question can never be 
settled : criticism is not yet, it may be questioned if 
it ever will be, an exact science, and its methods will 
always take on a tinge of impressionism. 

Nevertheless, to one familiar with Dr. Holmes 1 s 
genius, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table must 
seem not only a typical work but, on the whole, that 
which contains in happiest union his fundamental 
characteristics as an author. The incidents con- 
nected with the writing of this masterpiece of Ameri- 
can letters may be recited here. In 1831, when 
the future Autocrat was unautocratically fresh from 
Harvard, whence ho had been graduated two years 
before, and altogether innocent of the prefix Doctor 
which was to become an integral part of the name 
whereby his generation affectionately invoked him, he 
wrote for the New England Magazine, of Boston, a 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

couple of essays under the title which was made so 
familiar in subsequent years. They appeared respec- 
tively in the issues for November, 1831, and February, 
1832. Then, as Dr. Holmes has himself explained 
it to us, a silence of a quarter-century intervened ; 
for it was in the Atlantic Monthly of November, 1857, 
that the series as we know it began. The author 
took the hint offered by himself when a green strip- 
ling ; how often in literature, as in life, maturity is but 
the more or less laborious working out of what comes 
in youth by way of inspiration, in a happy flash ! It 
is a true instinct in a writer which dictates the return. 
" So long," says Amiel, " as a man is capable of self- 
renewal he is a living being. 1 ' Dr. Holmes, then, 
took the suggestion, but not the form, of his early 
work, having gained, in the meantime, the firm hand 
and the wide experience necessary to make it a 
worthy performance. The situation in 1857, compar- 
ing it with that of 1831, was vastly changed. Then 
he was unknown to letters, untried in medicine, simply 
a clever young Cambridge man with the inevitable 
interrogation mark after his name ; at the later date, 
he had won distinction as scientist, wit, and poet. 
This mid-century date may be regarded as the point 
moving forward from which he was to do his solidest 
prose work, — the Breakfast Table Trilogy, the novels, 
the biographies, and the delightful final chats embodied 
in such a book as Over the Tea-cups. 

It is no disparagement to his sprightly and graceful 
accomplishment in verse, to say that Holmes was, first 
and foremost, an essayist, past master in a rare and 



INTROD UCTION. V 

difficult kind of literature. A recent critic has held 
that the characteristic contribution of the United 
States to literature has been in prose. Without stop- 
ping to argue the question, it may be asserted roundly 
that no prose form counts more distinguished names 
— names fit, though few — than this of the essay. 
How may we define it? What are its definitive traits ? 
The essay, as it has been handed on from its great 
French master, Montaigne, to Bacon, and moulded 
by the deft manipulations of successive writers like 
Addison and Steele, Johnson and Goldsmith, Leigh 
Hunt, Lamb, and Hazlitt, and in our own day further 
illuminated by Stevenson and one or two others, has, 
with whatever personal variations, persisted in remain- 
ing primarily a vehicle for the conveyance of a per- 
sonality. This, rather than the communication of 
knowledge, has been its purpose and result. It has 
taken a desultory form, tending to the whimsical in 
manner, and the conversational in tone : " dispersed 
meditations," as Bacon called the notes which became 
his famous series of essays. This subjective quality, 
the disavowal of a serious aim, the confidential rela- 
tion between w r riter and reader, has, I say, ever marked 
the true essay. The essayist to the manner born 
throws his wit and wisdom into a causerie ; his work 
is the inspired chat of literature. It follows naturally 
that he is, in the flesh, a good talker ; as everybody 
knows, Dr. Holmes was marvellous in this respect. 
One's sense of this idea of the essay is much obscured 
by the giving of the name loosely to the imposing, 
formal treatise, — its object to impart information, its 



Vi INTRODUCTION. 

manner impersonal and heavy. This is a very worthy 
creature, no doubt : but different. The essayists we 
remember and love to remember are of the other sort. 
Dr. Holmes, surely, belongs to the essayists, who 
derive from this true line of succession. His is the 
personal touch, the tone of good society ; his, too, the 
display of wisdom, tempered by wit and so conveyed 
that there is neither heaviness nor slow motion. It 
is uniquely true of the essay that it demands and is 
adorned by the thought and expression of an author's 
prime of power. Holmes was nearly fifty years of 
age when the Autocrat was taken up and done at full 
length. Great lyric poetry can be, and perhaps most 
often is, produced in the twenties or early thirties ; 
witness Keats and Shelley, or the French Musset. 
But with the essay, there is an appreciable advantage 
in more of years. Montaigne, at thirty-seven, retired 
to his country estate to write the rambling, inimitable 
causeries which are the sole basis of his fame. Lamb 
was forty-five when the Elia Papers in the London 
Magazine gave the world present and to come of his 
best — and what a best ! While a later example, 
that of Stevenson, bears the same testimony, since 
the finest of his essays were the work of a man 
neighboring forty, — an age limit sometimes referred 
to as a sort of dead line for imaginative production in 
literature. In 1857, Dr. Holmes's natural spright- 
liness and creative energy were in no wise abated ; 
and to these qualities the five and twenty years herein- 
before mentioned, had but ripened and enriched his 
thought, so that art and intellect could enter into 



INTRODUCTION. vil 

one of those chemical unions which mean great 
things for letters. 

It should be said, moreover, that while the easy 
tone of good society (which in a sense has no local- 
ity) is struck by the Autocrat, no work is more 
essentially of New England. It is sound criticism to 
say that every piece of genuine literature should savor 
of the soil whence it springs. The Americanism here 
is unobtrusive but deep, to be felt on every page : 
and thinking of the middle nineteenth century, it does 
not taste of the parochial to remark that, for literature, 
Americanism and New Englandism were practically 
identical. Our representative efforts in prose and 
poetry were of this origin. Holmes's was enlightened 
New Englandism, the sort that made Boston of the 
old days to be in vital connection with the great 
thought-currents of the civilized world. Open the 
pages of the Autocrat almost at random and the 
statement is justified. The often homely idiom be- 
speaks the environment ; no less the thought, homely 
too, perhaps, but sound and sweet. The canny 
mother-sense, the shy ideality, the sensitiveness to the 
humorous, the underlying moral sturdiness, — these 
traits all are recognizable as of the warp and woof 
wherefrom our first typical literary goods were 
wrought. One is tempted to say, more particularly, 
that the combination of humor and sublimated good 
sense — the wisdom offered with a shrewdly smiling 
face — stands for the prime quality of this chef 
d^oeuvre of essay writing. This is not to overlook 
the charming description, the moments of lovely lyric 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

utterance embedded in the work. One can never 
forget that, in grave or gay, the now so familiar tem- 
perance poem, a homely masterpiece like The One- 
Hoss Shay, and such a little classic as The Chambered 
Nautilus, first got into print here. Yet the conviction 
remains that it is for these twin qualities of wit and 
wisdom in happy conjunction — for these and the 
urbane French manner of presentation — that the 
Autocrat will be longest cherished. 

The humor, too, is all pervasive and individual. 
How different it is from the fun of Lowell in the 
Biglow Papers I And yet in its way it is as dis- 
tinctive and enjoyable. It is removed as far as 
possible from horse-play and the bluster of farce. 
Much has been made of American humor by critics 
(generally transatlantic) who seem to feel that the 
grotesquerie of Artemus Ward or Bill Nye runs the 
whole diapason of a characteristic for which our 
literature is justly conspicuous. But the conclusion 
is hasty. The humor of Lowell and of Holmes, of 
Warner and of Curtis, of Chandler Harris and of 
Stockton — yes, and of Mark Twain at his best, is 
of another sort. Dr. Holmes is both witty and 
humorous ; but always there is breeding in his fun. 
He illustrates the idea that one can smile, even laugh, 
and be not only a villain, but a gentleman : that the 
grin and the guffaw are not of necessity national. His 
humor is atmospheric, as pure, wholesome humor ever 
should be ; there speaks in it a kindly and innocent 
soul. But his wit is a thing of thrust and parry, after 
the manner of your true intellectual duello : and then ? 



INTR OD UCTION. IX 

Woe worth the day to all shams, and fads, and base- 
nesses ! Holmes's epigrams have a nobler use than 
mere mind-tickling. And how naturally, how easily 
the humor shades into sentiment, — another sure test 
of the former. The sentiment is infallibly safe from 
sentimentality by this saving grace of humor, always 
in the background; even verbal play — a rock that 
shatters reputations not a few — seems legitimate in 
his hands : he is one of those people who know how 
to use it as a sauce piquante to the feast. 

The dramatic framework he chose for the AutocraVs 
monologues — the typical group of New England board- 
ing-house folk gathered about the morning table — is 
one that amply allows for the display of the essay 
qualities I have already glanced at : the rapid shift 
of subject, the touch-and-go method by which the 
mind alights upon a thought, sets it vibrating, and 
leaves it for another, as a bird flits from bough to 
bough. The speaker, veiling his own mind under the 
guise of the idiosyncrasy of others, is thereby enabled 
to see around a topic of conversation as he might not 
do if doomed continually to speak in proper person. 
It being of the genius of the essayist to approximate 
in manner the easy vernacular of the conversazione, he 
can in this dramatized form take on its very accent. 
Such a use of the essay as Dr. Holmes gives us in the 
Autocrat, is interesting in the evolution of this form, 
for it stands as a halfway stage of which the full develop- 
ment is seen in the character sketch of fiction. Care- 
lessly viewed, the Autocrat might be so called : yet 
not properly, for the reason that the interest is not 



X INTR OD UCTION. 

primarily the interest of narrative, of invention, and 
action ; not even in the main that of character ; but 
that of thought and manner — and especially manner 
— the way in which the thing is said. This distinc- 
tion is quite sufficient to justify one in declaring that 
the work affords a delicious example of the free use 
of the essay mood. 

And where manner is so much, how well the 
demands are met ! The diction of the Autocrat is 
a perfect vehicle to carry the intention. It is flexi- 
ble, harmonious, unobtrusively elegant ; is never 
slangy, forced, or precious. It is, nevertheless, idio- 
matic to the point of daring. The fresh in language 
was rarely more circumspect. The author knows just 
when to admit the colloquial, when to exclude it and 
adopt the more formal tone (stopping short of stiff- 
ness) of good society. Such a style is a rebuke to the 
linguistic gymnastics which pass for " original writing," 
and an incentive to the philologically pure in heart. 

- There is in the fact that Dr. Holmes found a nat- 
ural vent of expression in a form so eminently social 
in its kind, something revelatory of the man. Though, 
as we have seen, so essentially of New England, his 
literary genius had affiliations with the French. The 
literature of that great people is, above that of all 
other peoples, social and urbane : it is a literature 
that looks to and considers man in his relations to his 
fellow-men, and that does this with the manners of 
the grand world. It throws light upon the criss- 
cross of the world's crowded ways. This enlightening 
gift shines in Dr. Holmes : the French word iclair- 



INTR OD UCTION. XI 

cissement comes instinctively to the lips in thinking 
of his effect. He is a torch-bearer dressed a la mode. 
The Autocrat, as he beams upon his friends about 
the board, and gallantly rallies his landlady upon her 
buxom appearance, is happy in his feeling of the soli- 
darity not only of the boarding-house circle, but of 
the human race. No other American author has had 
just this talent for social expression, if I may so phrase 
it ; possibly Dr. Holmes's acceptability abroad may 
be accounted for in part by a reference to this quality. 
Nor did this social instinct, which might seem to sug- 
gest a certain cosmopolitanism, for a moment inter- 
fere with that genuinely New England character of 
thought and expression already touched upon and 
which makes the Autocrat so dear, so understood by 
his fellow Americans. His setting affords him the 
opportunity for sparkling, apposite, and suggestive 
thought absolutely unrestricted as to range : and he 
made the most of it. There is genius in the concep- 
tion as well as in the execution ; vividness and vari- 
ety are gained by his use of characters. 

The modernness of the Autocrat's talk is noticeable ; 
that cheery, quick-witted professor is an courant with 
everything intellectual. He is universally interested ; 
he has an effect of knowing everything. The author 
when he came in 1882 to write a preface to a new 
edition of The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, de- 
bated in his own mind, he tells us, the advisability of 
revision, — "thinking that his pages might be im- 
proved by various corrections and changes. 1 ' But, 
very wisely, he concluded that " it is dangerous to 



Xll INTR OD UCTION. 

tamper in cold blood and in after life with what was 
written in the glow of an earlier period." It may be 
added that had he yielded to this momentary sugges- 
tion and sought to bring those inimitable table-talks 
up to date — horrid idiom to match horrid thought — 
they would have been not a jot more contemporane- 
ous than they are in the original form. To be sure, 
as Dr. Holmes remarks himself, in the meanwhile " we 
read by the light the rocks of Pennsylvania have fur- 
nished us, all that is most important in the morning 
papers of the civilized world : the lightning so swift 
to run our errands, stands shining over us, white and 
steady as the moonbeams, burning, but unconsumed ; 
we talk with people in the neighboring cities as if 
they were at our elbow, and as our equipages flash 
along the highway, the silent bicycle glides by us and 
disappears in the distance. All these changes since 
1857." And in a still later preface, dated 1891, he 
calls attention to that other discovery of science, the 
electric motor, as a common carrier. But, we repeat, 
the Autocrat of 1857 has no accent of the past ; he is 
preeminently modern because Holmes, ever on the 
mental qui vive with his day, has an attitude which is 
timeless : the attitude of one who assimilates the best 
in all kinds of current knowledge, — the ardent seeker 
after truth in all its manifestations. He possessed to 
a marked degree the curious mind of the scientific in- 
vestigator. The true humanist is denoted, not by the 
facts he knows (since that is an accident dependent 
upon the age he lives in), but by this questing spirit 
in respect of knowledge. It is a question of proper 



INTRODUCTION. Xlll 

orientation. To say that a man has a sprightly habit 
of mind points suspiciously to a qualification on the 
side of breadth and robustness ; not so here : this 
sprightliness was Dr. Holmes's to such a degree that 
it is a salient feature of his work ; yet with no such 
reservation. 

In but one quality, it seems to me, does The Auto- 
crat of the Breakfast Table perhaps strike the reader 
of to-day, who takes it up nearly a half-century after 
it was penned, as belonging to an elder day. What 
might be called the author's sense of moral responsi- 
bility is likely to appear old-fashioned. And I may 
add that nothing stamps it as more characteristic of 
the literature made by our great earlier writers. The 
essayist of the present period may assume the mood 
intimate with his reader, granted : in fact, that sort 
of confidential impressionism is distinctly fashionable 
now. But he is not inclined to state his feeling of 
duty to that imaginary auditor (nor indeed to have 
it) as does Dr. Holmes in good set terms when it 
conies to farewell. " I hope," he says, " you all love 
me none the less for anything I have told you.*" It 
could not be more winningly put ; and the implica- 
tion is clear. The desire is for a friendship deserved 
because a trust has not been violated. Noblesse 
oblige is the motto of American literature before the 
war. Now, the maker of poem, story, or essay, if he 
accept the current teaching (which, luckily for us, he 
does not invariably do) tries to make of himself an 
impersonal force, with no duties to his readers, nor 
even to the creations of his fancy. Holmes touches 



XIV INTR OD UCTIOJV. 

the close of his charming chronicle with a pensive but 
wholesome sadness: yet lights it up with a beautiful 
love as he leads the schoolmistress to the altar. We 
have changed all that : our sadness must be bitter, 
hopeless, our marriages come tardy off. The Auto- 
crat, in tone and teaching, I say, offers an instructive 
contrast to present-day methods. It is the frank ac- 
ceptance of this underlying moral obligation of the 
author to his public which gives backbone to such a 
work, which is then clothed upon and decorated with 
all the charms and graces of literary art. Any suspi- 
cion of didacticism is removed by the delightful ease 
of the manner and the unfailing, bubbling flow of good 
spirits. Thus, sound in ethics, as it is flawless in art, 
the work to-day holds the allegiance of admirers whose 
name is legion — and deserves to hold it. Any piece 
of literature that is good in this double sense may be 
relied upon to last. 

RICHARD BURTON. 
April 14, 1900. 



THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOG- 
RAPHY. 



The interruption referred to in the first sentence 
of the first of these papers was just a quarter of a 
century in duration. 

Two articles entitled " The Autocrat of the Break- 
fast-Table " will be found in the " New England 
Magazine," formerly published in Boston by J. T. 
and E. Buckingham. The date of the first of these 
articles is November 1831, and that of the second 
February 1832. When "The Atlantic Monthly" was 
begun, twenty-five years afterwards, and the author 
was asked to write for it, the recollection of these 
crude products of his uncombed literary boyhood 
suggested the thought that it would be a curious 
experiment to shake the same bough again, and see 
if the ripe fruit were better or worse than the early 
windfalls. 

So began this series of papers, which naturally 
brings those earlier attempts to my own notice and 
that of some few friends who were idle enough to 
read them at the time of their publication. The man 
is father to the boy that was, and I am my own son, 
as it seems to me, in those papers of the New Eng- 
land Magazine. If I find it hard to pardon the boy's 
faults, others would find it harder. They will not, 
therefore, be reprinted here, nor as I hope, anywhere. 



XVI THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

But a sentence or two from them will perhaps bear 
reproducing, and with these I trust the gentle reader, 
if that kind being still breathes, will be contented. 

— "It is a capital plan to carry a tablet with you, 
and, when you find yourself felicitous, take notes of 
your own conversation.' 1 — 

— " When I feel inclined to read poetry I take down 
my Dictionary. The poetry of words is quite as beau- 
tiful as that of sentences. The author may arrange 
the gems effectively, but their shape and lustre have 
been given by the attrition of ages. Bring me the 
finest simile from the whole range of imaginative 
writing, and I will show you a single word which con- 
veys a more profound, a more accurate, and a more 
eloquent analogy." — 

— " Once on a time, a notion was started, that if all 
the people in the world would shout at once, it might 
be heard in the moon. So the projectors agreed it 
should be done in just ten years. Some thousand 
shiploads of chronometers were distributed to the 
selectmen and other great folks of all the different 
nations. For a year beforehand, nothing else was 
talked about but the awful noise that was to be made 
on the great occasion. When the time came, every- 
body had their ears so wide open, to hear the univer- 
sal ejaculation of Boo, — the word agreed upon, — 
that nobody spoke except a deaf man in one of the 
Fejee Islands, and a woman in Pekin, so that the 
world was never so still since the creation." — 

There was nothing better than these things and 
there was not a little that was much worse. A young 
fellow of two or three and twenty has as good a right 



THE AUTOCRAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, xvii 

to spoil a magazine-full of essays in learning how to 
write, as an oculist like Wenzel had to spoil his hat- 
full of eyes in learning how to operate for cataract, or 
an elegant like Brummel to point to an armful of fail- 
ures in the attempt to achieve a perfect tie. This son 
of mine, whom I have not seen for these twenty-five 
years, generously counted, was a self-willed youth, 
always too ready to utter his unchastised fancies. He, 
like too many American young people, got the spur 
when he should have had the rein. He therefore 
helped to fill the market with that unripe fruit which 
his father says in one of these papers abounds in the 
marts of his native country. All these by-gone short- 
comings he would hope are forgiven, did he not feel 
sure that very few of his readers know anything about 
them. In taking the old name for the new papers, he 
felt bound to say that he had uttered unwise things 
under that title, and if it shall appear that his unwis- 
dom has not diminished by at least half while his 
years have doubled, he promises not to repeat the 
experiment if he should live to double them again and 
become his own grandfather. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

Boston, Nov. ist, 1858. 



THE AUTOCRAT OF THE 
BREAKFAST-TABLE. 



L 

I was just going to say, when I was interrupted, 
that one of the many ways of classifying minds is 
under the heads of arithmetical and algebraical intel- 
lects. All economical and practical wisdom is an 
extension or variation of the following arithmetical 
formula : 2 + 2 = 4. Every philosophical proposition 
has the more general character of the expression 
a + b — c. We are mere operatives, empirics, and 
egotists, until we learn to think in letters instead of 
figures. 

They all stared. There is a divinity student lately 
come among us to whom I commonly address remarks 
like the above, allowing him to take a certain share 
in the conversation, so far as assent or pertinent 
questions are involved. He abused his liberty on 
this occasion by presuming to say that Leibnitz had 
the same observation. — No, sir, I replied, he has not. 
But he said a mighty good thing about mathematics, 
that sounds something like it, and you found it, not 
in the original, but quoted by Dr. Thomas Reid. I 
1 



2 THE AUTOCRAT 

will tell the company what he did say, one of these 
days. 

— If I belong to a Society of Mutual Admira- 
tion ? — I blush to say that I do not at this present 
moment. I once did, however. It was the first 
association to which I ever heard the term applied ; 
a body of scientific young men in a great foreign city 
who admired their teacher, and to some extent each 
other. Many of them deserved it ; they have become 
famous since. It amuses me to hear the talk of one 
of those beings described by Thackeray — 

" Letters four do form his name " — 

about a social development which belongs to the very 
noblest stage of civilization. All generous companies 
of artists, authors, philanthropists, men of science, 
are, or ought to be, Societies of Mutual Admiration. 
A man of genius, or any kind of superiority, is not 
debarred from admiring the same quality in another, 
nor the other from returning his admiration. They 
may even associate together and continue to think 
highly of each other. And so of a dozen such men, 
if any one place is fortunate enough to hold so many. 
The being referred to above assumes several false 
premises. First, that men of talent necessarily hate 
each other. Secondly, that intimate knowledge or 
habitual association destroys our admiration of per- 
sons whom we esteemed highly at a distance. 
Thirdly, that a circle of clever fellows, who meet 
together to dine and have a good time, have signed 
a constitutional compact to glorify themselves and to 
put down him and the fraction of the human race 
not belonging to their number. Fourthly, that it is 
an outrage that he is not asked to join them. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 3 

Here the company laughed a good deal, and the 
old gentleman who sits opposite said, "That's it! 
that's it !" 

I continued, for I was in the talking vein. As to 
clever people's hating each other, I think a little 
extra talent does sometimes make people jealous. 
They become irritated by perpetual attempts and 
failures, and it hurts their tempers and dispositions. 
Unpretending mediocrity is good, and genius is glori- 
ous ; but a weak flavor of genius in an essentially 
common person is detestable. It spoils the grand 
neutrality of a commonplace character, as the rins- 
ings of an unwashed wineglass spoil a draught of 
fair water. No wonder the poor fellow we spoke of, 
who always belongs to this class of slightly flavored 
mediocrities, is puzzled and vexed by the strange 
sight of a dozen men of capacity working and play- 
ing together in harmony. He and his fellows are 
always fighting. With them familiarity naturally 
breeds contempt. If they ever praise each other's 
bad drawings, or broken-winded novels, or spavined 
verses, nobody ever supposed it was from admiration ; 
it was simply a contract between themselves and a 
publisher or dealer. 

If the Mutuals have really nothing among them 
worth admiring, that alters the question. But if they 
are men with noble powers and qualities, let me tell 
you, that, next to youthful love and family affections, 
there is no human sentiment better than that which 
unites the Societies of Mutual Admiration. And what 
would literature or art be without such associations ? 
Who can tell what we owe to the Mutual Admiration 
Society of which Shakspeare, and Ben Jonson, and 
Beaumont and Fletcher were members? Or to that 



4 THE AUTOCRAT 

of which Addison and Steele formed the centre, and 
which gave us the Spectator ? Or to that where 
Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Burke, and Reynolds, 
and Beauclerk, and Boswell, most admiring among 
all admirers, met together? Was there any great 
harm in the fact that the Irvings and Paulding wrote 
in company ? or any unpardonable cabal in the liter- 
ary union of Verplanck and Bryant and Sands, and 
as many more as they chose to associate with them ? 

The poor creature does not know what he is talk- 
ing about, when he abuses this noblest of institu- 
tions. Let him inspect its mysteries through the 
knot-hole he has secured, but not use that orifice as 
a medium for his popgun. Such a society is the 
crown of a literary metropolis ; if a town has not 
material for it, and spirit and good feeling enough to 
organize it, it is a mere caravansary, fit for a man of 
genius to lodge in, but not to live in. Foolish people 
hate and dread and envy such an association of men 
of varied powers and influence, because it is lofty, 
serene, impregnable, and, by the necessity of the 
case, exclusive. Wise ones are prouder of the title M. 
S. M. A. than of all their other honors put together. 

— All generous minds have a horror of what are 
commonly called " facts.' 1 They are the brute beasts 
of the intellectual domain. Who does not know 
fellows that always have an ill-conditioned fact or 
two which they lead after them into decent company 
like so many bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every 
ingenious suggestion, or convenient generalization, 
or pleasant fancy? I allow no "facts" at this table. 
What! Because bread is good and wholesome and 
necessary and nourishing, shall you thrust a crumb 
into my windpipe while I am talking? Do not these 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 5 

muscles of mine represent a hundred loaves of bread ? 
and is not my thought the abstract of ten thousand 
of these crumbs of truth with which you would choke 
off my speech ? 

[The above remark must be conditioned and quali- 
fied for the vulgar mind. The reader will of course 
understand the precise amount of seasoning which 
must be added to it before he adopts it as one of the 
axioms of his life. The speaker disclaims all respon- 
sibility for its abuse in incompetent hands.] 

This business of conversation is a very serious 
matter. There are men that it weakens one to talk 
with an hour more than a day's fasting would do. 
Mark this that I am going to say; for it is as good as 
a working professional man's advice, and costs you 
nothing : It is better to lose a pint of blood from 
your veins than to have a nerve tapped. Nobody 
measures your nervous force as it runs away, nor 
bandages your brain and marrow after the operation. 

There are men of esprit who are excessively ex- 
hausting to some people. They are the talkers who 
have what may be calledy^r^y minds. Their thoughts 
do not run in the natural order of sequence. They 
say bright things on all possible subjects, but their 
zigzags rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour 
with one of these jerky companions, talking with a 
dull friend affords great relief. It is like taking the 
cat in your lap after holding a squirrel. 

What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be 
sure, at times! A ground-glass shade over a gas- 
lamp does not bring more solace to our dazzled eyes 
than such a one to our minds. 

" Do not dull people bore you ? " said one of the 
lady-boarders, — the same that sent me her auto- 



6 THE AUTOCRAT 

graph-book last week with a request for a few origina. 
stanzas, not remembering that " The Pactolian " pays 
me five dollars a line for every thing I write in its 
columns. 

" Madam," said I, (she and the century were in their 
teens together,) "all men are bores, except when we 
want them. There never was but one man whom I 
would trust with my latch-key." 

"Who might that favored person be ? " 

"Zimmermann." 

— The men of genius that I fancy most have 
erectile heads like the cobra-di-capello. You remem- 
ber what they tell of William Pinkney, the great 
pleader ; how in his eloquent paroxysms the veins of 
his neck would swell and his face flush and his eyes 
glitter, until he seemed on the verge of apoplexy. 
The hydraulic arrangements for supplying the brain 
with blood are only second in importance to its own 
organization. The bulbous-headed fellows that steam 
well when they are at work are the men that draw 
big audiences and give us marrowy books and pictures. 
It is a good sign to have one's feet grow cold when he 
is writing. A great writer and speaker once told me 
that he often wrote with his feet in hot water ; but for 
this, all his blood would have run into his head, as the 
mercury sometimes withdraws into the ball of a ther- 
mometer. 

— You don't suppose that my remarks made at 
this table are like so many postage-stamps, do you, — 
each to be only once uttered? If you do, you are 
mistaken. He must be a poor creature that does not 
often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the ex- 
cellent piece of advice, " Know thyself," never allud- 
ing to that sentiment again during the course of a 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, J 

protracted existence! Why, the truths a man carries 
about with him are his tools ; and do you think a 
carpenter is bound to use the same plane but once to 
smooth a knotty board with, or to hang up his ham- 
mer after it has driven its first nail? I shall never 
repeat a conversation, but an idea often. I shall use 
the same types when I like, but not commonly the 
same stereotypes. A thought is often original, though 
you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to 
you over a new route, by a new and express train of 
associations. 

Sometimes, but rarely, one may be caught making 
the same speech twice over, and yet be held blameless. 
Thus, a certain lecturer, after performing in an inland 
city, where dwells a Litteratrice of note, was invited 
to meet her and others over the social teacup. She 
pleasantly referred to his many wanderings in his new 
occupation. " Yes," he replied, " I am like the Huma, 
the bird that never lights, being always in the cars, 
as he is always on the wing. ,, — Years elapsed. The 
lecturer visited the same place once more for the same 
purpose. Another social cup after the lecture, and a 
second meeting with the distinguished lady. " You 
are constantly going from place to place," she said. — 
" Yes," he answered, " I am like the Huma," — and 
finished the sentence as before. 

What horrors, when it flashed over him that he had 
made this fine speech, word for word, twice over! Yet 
it was not true, as the lady might perhaps have fairly 
inferred, that he had embellished his conversation 
with the Huma daily during that whole interval of 
years. On the contrary, he had never once thought 
of the odious fowl until the recurrence of precisely the 
same circumstances brought up precisely the same 



8 THE AUTOCRAT 

idea. He ought to have been proud of the accuracy 
of his mental adjustments. Given certain factors, and 
a sound brain should always evolve the same fixed 
product with the certainty of Babbage's calculating 
machine. 

— What a satire, by the way, is that machine on 
the mere mathematician ! A Frankenstein-monster, 
a thing without brains and without heart, too stupid to 
make a blunder; that turns out results like a corn- 
sheller, and never grows any wiser or better, though 
it grind a thousand bushels of them ! 

I have an immense respect for a man of talents ///as 1 
"the mathematics. 1 ' But the calculating power alone 
should seem to be the least human of qualities, and 
to have the smallest amount of reason in it ; since a 
machine can be made to do the work of three or four 
calculators, and better than any one of them. 'Some- 
times I have been troubled that I had not a deeper 
intuitive apprehension of the relations of numbers. 
But the triumph of the ciphering hand-organ has con- 
soled me. I always fancy I can hear the wheels click- 
ing in a calculator's brain. The power of dealing with 
numbers is a kind of " detached lever " arrangement, 
which may be put into a mighty poor watch. I sup- 
pose it is about as common as the power of moving 
the ears voluntarily, which is a moderately rare en- 
dowment. 

— Little localized powers, and little narrow streaks 
of specialized knowledge, are things men are very 
apt to be conceited about. Nature is very wise ; 
but for this encouraging principle how many small 
talents and little accomplishments would be neg- 
lected ! Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is 
to human character what salt is to the ocean ; it keeps 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. g 

it sweet, and renders it endurable. Say rather it is 
like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's plumage, 
which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him 
and the wave in which he dips. When one has had 
all his conceit taken out of him, when he has lost all 
his illusions, his feathers will soon soak through, and 
he will fly no more. 

"So you admire conceited people, do you? 11 said 
the young lady who has come to the city to be fin- 
ished off for — the duties of life. 

I am afraid you do not study logic at your school, 
my dear. It does not follow that I wish to be pickled 
in brine because I like a salt-water plunge at Nahant. 
I say that conceit is just as natural a thing to human 
minds as a centre is to a circle. But little-minded 
people's thoughts move in such small circles that five 
minutes 1 conversation gives you an arc long enough 
to determine their whole curve. An arc in the move- 
ment of a large intellect does not sensibly differ from 
a straight line. Even if it have the third vowel as its 
centre, it does not soon betray it. The highest 
thought, that is, is the most seemingly impersonal ; it 
does not obviously imply any individual centre. 

Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it, is 
always imposing. What resplendent beauty that must 
have been which could have authorized Phryne to 
" peel 11 in the way she did ! What fine speeches are 
those two : " Non omnis moriar" and " I have taken 
all knowledge to be my province 11 ! Even in common 
people, conceit has the virtue of making them cheer- 
ful; the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, 
his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is 
almost sure to be a good-humored person, though 
liable to be tedious at times. 



IO THE AUTOCRAT 

— What are the great faults of conversation ? Want 
of ideas, want of words, want of manners, are the prin- 
cipal ones, I suppose you think. I don't doubt it, 
but I will tell you what I have found spoil more good 
talks than anything else ; — long arguments on special 
points between people who differ on the fundamental 
principles upon which these points depend. No men 
can have satisfactory relations with each other until 
they have agreed on certain tdtiiiiata of belief not to 
be disturbed in ordinary conversation, and unless they 
have sense enough to trace the secondary questions 
depending upon these ultimate beliefs to their source. 
In short, just as a written constitution is essential to 
the best social order, so a code of finalities is a neces- 
sary condition of profitable talk between two per- 
sons. Talking is like playing on the harp ; there is as 
much in laying the hand on the strings to stop their 
vibrations as in twanging them to bring out their 
music. 

— Do you mean to say the pun-question is not 
clearly settled in your minds ? Let me lay down the 
law upon the subject. Life and language are alike 
sacred. Homicide and verbicide — that is, violent 
treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate 
meaning, which is its life — are alike forbidden. Man- 
slaughter, which is the meaning of the one, is the 
same as man's laughter, which is the end of the 
other. A pun is prima facie an insult to the person 
you are talking with. It implies utter indifference to 
or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter how 
serious. I speak of total depravity, and one says all 
that is written on the subject is deep raving. I have 
committed my self-respect by talking with such a 
person. I should like to commit him, but cannot, 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. II 

because he is a nuisance. Or I speak of geological 
convulsions, and he asks me what was the cosine of 
Noah's ark ; also, whether the Deluge was not a deal 
huger than any modern inundation. 

A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. 
But if a blow were given for such cause, and death 
ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts 
and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an 
aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable 
homicide. Thus, in a case lately decided before 
Miller, J., Doe presented Roe a subscription paper, 
and urged the claims of suffering humanity. Roe 
replied by asking, When charity was like a top? It 
was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified si- 
lence. Roe then said, "When it begins to hum. 1 '' 
Doe then — and not till then — struck Roe, and his 
head happening to hit a bound volume of the Monthly 
Rag-bag and Stolen Miscellany, intense mortifica- 
tion ensued, with a fatal result. The chief laid down 
his notions of the law to his brother justices, who 
unanimously replied, "Jest so." The chief rejoined, 
that no man should jest so without being punished 
for it, and charged for the prisoner, who was acquitted, 
and the pun ordered to be burned by the sheriff. The 
bound volume was forfeited as a deodand, but not 
claimed. 

People that make puns are like wanton boys that 
put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse 
themselves and other children, but their little trick 
may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake 
of a battered witticism. 

I will thank you, B. F., to bring down two books, 
of which I will mark the places on this slip of paper. 
(While he is gone, I may say that this boy, our land- 



12 THE AUTOCRAT 

lady's youngest, is called Benjamin Franklin, after 
the celebrated philosopher of that name. A highly 
merited compliment.) 

I wished to refer to two eminent authorities. Now 
be so good as to listen. The great moralist says : 
" To trifle with the vocabulary which is the vehicle of 
social intercourse is to tamper with the currency of 
human intelligence. He who would violate the sancti- 
ties of his mother tongue would invade the recesses of 
the paternal till without remorse, and repeat the ban- 
quet of Saturn without an indigestion." 

And, once more ? listen to the historian. "The 
Puritans hated puns. The Bishops were notoriously 
addicted to them. The Lords Temporal carried them 
to the verge of license. Majesty itself must have its 
Royal quibble. <Ye be burly, my Lord of Burleigh,' 
said Queen Elizabeth, ' but ye shall make less stir in 
our realm than my Lord of Leicester.' The gravest 
wisdom and the highest breeding lent their sanction 
to the practice. Lord Bacon playfully declared him- 
self a descendant of 'Og, the King of Bashan. Sir 
Philip Sidney, with his last breath, reproached the 
soldier who brought him water, for wasting a casque 
full upon a dying man. A courtier, who saw Othello 
performed at the Globe Theatre, remarked, that the 
blackamoor was a brute, and not a man. ' Thou hast 
reason,' replied a great Lord, ' according to Plato his 
saying ; for this be a two-legged animal with feathers.' 
The fatal habit became universal. The language was 
corrupted. The infection spread to the national con- 
science. Political double-dealings naturally grew out 
of verbal double meanings. The teeth of the new 
dragon were sown by the Cadmus who introduced 
the alphabet of equivocation. What was levity in the 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 3 

time of the Tudors grew to regicide and revolution in 
the age of the Stuarts." 

Who was that boarder that just whispered some- 
thing about the Macaulay-flowers of literature? — 
There was a dead silence. — I said calmly, I shall 
henceforth consider any interruption by a pun as a 
hint to change my boarding-house. Do not plead 
my example. If '/have used any such, it has been 
only as a Spartan father would show up a drunken 
helot. We have done with them. 

— If a logical mind ever found out anything with 
its logic ? — I should say that its most frequent work 
was to build a pons asinorum over chasms which 
shrewd people can bestride without such a structure. 
You can hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer, to prove 
anything that you want to prove. You can buy treat- 
ises to show that Napoleon never lived, and that no 
battle of Bunker-hill was ever fought. The great 
minds are those with a wide span, which couple 
truths related to, but far removed from, each other. 
Logicians carry the surveyor's chain over the track 
of which these are the true explorers. I value a man 
mainly for his primary relations with truth, as I under- 
stand truth, — not for any secondary artifice in hand- 
ling his ideas. Some of the sharpest men in argument 
are notoriously unsound in judgment. I should not 
trust the counsel of a smart debater, any more than 
that of a good chess-player. Either may of course 
advise wisely, but not necessarily because he wrangles 
or plays well. 

The old gentleman who sits opposite got his hand 
up, as a pointer lifts his forefoot, at the expression, 
" his relations with truth, as I understand truth," and 
when I had done, sniffed audibly, and said I talked 



14 THE AUTOCRAT 

like a transcendentalist. For his part, common sense 
was good enough for him. 

Precisely so. my dear sir, I replied ; common sense, 
as you understand it. We all have to assume a stand- 
ard of judgment in our own minds, either of things 
■^1 or persons. A man who is willing to take another's 
opinion has to exercise his judgment in the choice of 
whom to follow, which is often as nice a matter as to 
judge of things for one's self. On the whole, I had 
rather judge men's minds by comparing their thoughts 
with my own, than judge of thoughts by knowing who 
utter them. I must do one or the other. It does 
not follow, of course, that I may not recognize an- 
other man's thoughts as broader and deeper than my 
own; but that does not necessarily change my opin- 
ion, otherwise this would be at the mercy of every 
superior mind that held a different one. How many 
of our most cherished beliefs are like those drinking- 
glasses of the ancient pattern, that serve us well so 
long as we keep them in our hand, but spill all if we 
attempt to set them down! I have sometimes com- 
pared conversation to the Italian game of mora, in 
which one player lifts his hand with so many fingers 
extended, and the other gives the number if he can. 
I show my thought, another his ; if they agree, well ; 
if they differ, we find the largest common factor, if 
we can, but at any rate avoid disputing about remain- 
ders and fractions, which is to real talk what tuning 
an instrument is to playing on it. 

— What if, instead of talking this morning, I should 
read you a copy of verses, with critical remarks by 
the author ? Any of the company can retire that 
like. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 5 



ALBUM VERSES. 

When Eve had led her lord away, 

And Cain had killed his brother, 
The stars and flowers, the poets say, 

Agreed with one another 

To cheat the cunning tempter's art, 

And teach the race its duty, 
By keeping on its wicked heart 

Their eyes of light and beauty. 

A million sleepless lids, they say, 

Will be at least a warning; 
And so the flowers would watch by day, 

The stars from eve to morning. 

On hill and prairie, field and lawn, 

Their dewy eyes upturning, 
The flowers still watch from reddening dawn 

Till western skies are burning. 

Alas ! each hour of daylight tells 

A tale of shame so crushing, 
That some turn white as sea-bleached shells, 

And some are always blushing. 

But when the patient stars look down 

On all their light discovers, 
The traitor's smile, the murderer's fro wn, 

The lips of lying lovers, 

They try to shut their saddening eyes, 

And in the vain endeavor 
We see them twinkling in the skies, 

And so they wink forever. 

What do you think of these verses, my friends? — 
Is that piece an impromptu? said my landlady's 



1 6 THE AUTOCRAT 

daughter. (Aet. 19-f. Tender-eyed blonde. Long 
ringlets. Cameo pin. Gold pencil-case on a chain. 
Locket. Bracelet. Album. Autograph -book. Accor- 
dion. Reads Byron, Tupper, and Sylvanus Cobb, 
junior, while her mother makes the puddings. Says, 
" Yes? " when you tell her anything.) — Oui et non, 
ma petite, — Yes and no, my child. Five of the seven 
verses were written off-hand ; the other two took a 
week, — that is, were hanging round the desk in a 
ragged, forlorn, unrhymed condition as long as that. 
All poets will tell you just such stories. Oest le der- 
nier pas qui coute. Don't you know how hard it is 
for some people to get out of a room after their visit 
is really over? They want to be off, and you want 
to have them off, but they don't know how to manage 
it. One would think they had been built in your 
parlor or study, and were waiting to be launched. 
I have contrived a sort of ceremonial inclined plane 
for such visitors, which being lubricated with certain 
smooth phrases, I back them down, metaphorically 
speaking, stern-foremost, into their " native element," 
the great ocean of out-doors. Well, now, there are 
poems as hard to get rid of as these rural visitors. 
They come in glibly, use up all the serviceable 
rhymes, day, ray, beauty, duty, skies, eyes, other, 
brother, mountain, fountain, and the like ; and so 
they go on until you think it is time for the wind-up, 
and the wind-up won't come on any terms. So they 
lie about until you get sick of the sight of them, and 
end by thrusting some cold scrap of a final couplet 
upon them, and turning them out of doors. I suspect 
a good many " impromptus " could tell just such a 
story as the above. — Here turning to our landlady, I 
used an illustration which pleased the company much 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 7 

at the time, and has since been highly commended. 
" Madam," I said, " you can pour three gills and three 
quarters of honey from that pint jug, if it is full, in 
less than one minute ; but, Madam, you could not 
empty that last quarter of a gill, though you were 
turned into a marble Hebe, and held the vessel upside 
down for a thousand years. 

One gets tired to death of the old, old rhymes, 
such as you see in that copy of verses, — which I 
don't mean to abuse, or to praise either. I always 
feel as if I were a cobbler, putting new top-leathers 
to an old pair of boot-soles and bodies, when I am 
fitting sentiments to these venerable jingles. 

youth 
morning 
truth 
warning. 

Nine tenths of the " Juvenile Poems " written 
spring out of the above musical and suggestive co- 
incidences. 

" Yes ? " said our landlady's daughter. 

I did not address the following remark to her, and 
I trust, from her limited range of reading, she will 
never see it ; I said it softly to my next neighbor. 

When a young female wears a flat circular side- 
curl, gummed on each temple, — when she walks 
with a male, not arm in arm, but his arm against 
the back of hers, — and when she says " Yes ? " with 
the note of interrogation, you are generally safe in 
asking her what wages she gets, and who the " feller " 
was you saw her with. 

" What were you whispering ? " said the daughter 
of the house, moistening her lips, as she spoke, in a 
very engaging manner. 



1 8 THE AUTOCRAT 

"I was only laying down a principle of social 
diagnosis." 
" Yes ? " 

— It is curious to see how the same wants and 
tastes find the same implements and modes of ex- 
pression in all times and places. The young ladies 
of Otaheite, as you may see in Cook's Voyages, had 
a sort of crinoline arrangement fully equal in radius 
to the largest spread of our own lady-baskets. When 
I fling a Bay-State shawl over my shoulders, I am 
only taking a lesson from the climate that the Indian 
had learned before me. A blanket-shawl we call it, 
and not a plaid ; and we wear it like the aborigines, 
and not like the Highlanders. 

— We are the Romans of the modern world, — 
the great assimilating people. Conflicts and con- 
quests are of course necessary accidents with us, as 
with our prototypes. And so we come to their style 
of weapon. Our army sword is the short, stiff, 
pointed gladius of the Romans ; and the American 
bowie-knife is the same tool, modified to meet the 
daily wants of civil society. I announce at this table 
an axiom not to be found in Montesquieu or the 
journals of Congress : — 

The race that shortens its weapons lengthens its 
boundaries. 

Corollary. It was the Polish lance that left Poland 
at last with nothing of her own to bound. 

" Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear / " 

What business had Sarmatia to be fighting for 
liberty with a fifteen-foot pole between her and the 
breasts of her enemies ? If she had but clutched 
the old Roman and young American weapon, and 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 9 

come to close quarters, there might have been a 
chance for her ; but it would have spoiled the best 
passage in "The Pleasures of Hope." 

— Self-made men ? — Well, yes. Of course every- 
body likes and respects self-made men. It is a great 
deal better to be made in that way than not to be 
made at all. Are any of you younger people old 
enough to remember that Irishman's house on the 
marsh at Cambridgeport, which house he built from 
drain to chimney-top with his own hands ? It took 
him a good many years to build it, and one could 
see that it was a little out of plumb, and a little wavy 
in outline, and a little queer and uncertain in general 
aspect. A regular hand could certainly have built 
a better house ; but it was a very good house for a 
" self-made " carpenter's house, and people praised it, 
and said how remarkably well the Irishman had suc- 
ceeded. They never thought of praising the fine 
blocks of houses a little farther on. 

Your self-made man, whittled into shape with his 
own jack-knife, deserves more credit, if that is all, 
than the regular engine-turned article, shaped by the 
most approved pattern, and French-polished by soci- 
ety and travel. But as to saying that one is every 
way the equal of the other, that is another matter. 
The right of strict social discrimination of all things 
and persons, according to their merits, native or ac- 
quired, is one of the most precious republican privi- 
leges. I take the liberty to exercise it, when I say, 
that, other things being equal, in most relations of life 
I prefer a man of family. 

*What do I mean by a man of family? — O, I'll give 
you a general idea of what I mean. Let us give him 
a first-rate fit out ; it costs us nothing. 



20 THE AUTOCRAT 

Four or five generations of gentlemen and gentle- 
women ; among them a member of his Majesty's 
Council for the Province, a Governor or so, one or 
two Doctors of Divinity, a member of Congress, not 
later than the time of top-boots with tassels. 

Family portraits. The member of the Council, by 
Smibert. The great merchant -uncle, by Copley, full 
length, sitting in his arm-chair, in a velvet cap and 
flowered robe, with a globe by him, to show the 
range of his commercial transactions, and letters with 
large red seals lying round, one directed conspic- 
uously to The Honorable etc. etc. Great-grand- 
mother, by the same artist ; brown satin, lace very 
fine, hands superlative ; grand old lady, stiffish, but 
imposing. Her mother, artist unknown ; flat, angular, 
hanging sleeves ; parrot on fist. A pair of Stuarts, 
viz., i. A superb full-blown, mediaeval gentleman, 
with a fiery dash of Tory blood in his veins, tem- 
pered down with that of a fine old rebel grandmother, 
and warmed up with the best of old India Madeira ; 
his face is one flame of ruddy sunshine ; his ruffled 
shirt rushes out of his bosom with an impetuous gen- 
erosity, as if it would drag his heart after it ; and his 
smile is good for twenty thousand dollars to the Hos- 
pital, besides ample bequests to all relatives and de- 
pendants. 2. Lady of the same; remarkable cap; 
high waist, as in time of Empire ; bust a la Josephine ; 
wisps of curls, like celery-tips, at sides of forehead ; 
complexion clear and warm, like rose-cordial. As 
for the miniatures by Malbone, we don't count them 
in the gallery. 

Books, too, with the names of old college-students 
in them, — family names ; — you will find them at the 
head of their respective classes in the days when stu- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 21 

dents took rank on the catalogue from their parents 1 
condition. Elzevirs, with the Latinized appellations 
of youthful progenitors, and Hie liber est metis on the 
title-page. A set of Hogarth's original plates. Pope, 
original edition, 15 volumes, London, 17 17. Barrow 
on the lower shelves, in folio. Tillotson on the 
upper, in a little dark platoon of octo-decimos. 

Some family silver ; a string of wedding and funeral 
rings ; the arms of the family curiously blazoned ; 
the same in worsted, by a maiden aunt. 

If the man, of family has an old place to keep 
these things in, furnished with claw-footed chairs and 
black mahogany tables, and tall bevel-edged mirrors, 
and stately upright cabinets, his outfit is complete. 

No, my friends, I go (always, other things being 
equal) for the man who inherits family traditions and 
the cumulative humanities of at least four or five gen- 
erations. Above all things, as a child, he should 
have tumbled about in a library. All men are afraid 
of books, who have not handled them from infancy. 
Do you suppose our dear didascalos over there ever 
read Poli Synopsis, or consulted Castelli Lexicon, 
while he was growing up to their stature ? Not he ; 
but virtue passed through the hem of their parch- 
ment and leather garments whenever he touched 
them, as the precious drugs sweated through the bat's 
handle in the Arabian story. I tell you he is at home 
wherever he smells the invigorating fragrance of Rus- 
sia leather. No self-made man feels so. One may, 
it is true, have all the antecedents I have spoken of, 
and yet be a boor or a shabby fellow. One may have 
none of them, and yet be fit for councils and courts. 
Then let them change places. Our social arrange- 
ment has this great beauty, that its strata shift up and 



22 THE AUTOCRAT 

down as they change specific gravity, without being 
clogged by layers of prescription. But I still insist 
on my democratic liberty of choice, and I go for the 
man with the gallery of family portraits against the 
one with the twenty-five-cent daguerreotype, unless 
I find out that the last is the better of the two. 

— I should have felt more nervous about the late 
comet, if I had thought the world was ripe. But it 
is very green yet, if I am not mistaken ; and besides, 
there is a great deal of coal to use up, which I can- 
not bring myself to think was made for nothing. If 
certain things, which seem to me essential to a mil- 
lennium, had come to pass, I should have been fright- 
ened ; but they haven't. Perhaps you would like to 
hear my 

LATTER-DAY WARNINGS. 

When legislators keep the law, 
When banks dispense with bolts and locks, 
' When berries, whortle — rasp — and straw — 
Grow bigger downwards through the box, — 

When he that selleth house or land 
Shows leak in roof or flaw in right, — 

When haberdashers choose the stand 

Whose window hath the broadest light, — 

When preachers tell us all they think, 

And party leaders all they mean, — 
When what we pay for, that we drink, 

From real grape and coffee-bean, — 

When lawyers take what they would give, 
And doctors give what they would take, — 

When city fathers eat to live, 
Save when they fast for conscience' sake, — 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2$ 

When one that hath a horse on sale 

Shall bring his merit to the proof, 
Without a lie for every nail 

That holds the iron on the hoof, — 

When in the usual place for rips 

Our gloves are stitched with special care, 

And guarded well the whalebone tips 
Where first umbrellas need repair, — 

When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot 

The power of suction to resist, 
And claret -bottles harbor not 

Such dimples as would hold your fist, — 

When publishers no longer steal, 

And pay for what they stole before, — 
When the first locomotive's wheel 

Rolls through the Hoosac tunnel's bore , — 

Till then let Cumming blaze away, 
And Miller's saints blow up the globe ; 

But when you see that blessed day, 
Then order your ascension robe. 

The company seemed to like the verses, and I 
promised them to read others occasionally, if they 
had a mind to hear them. Of course they would not 
expect it every morning. Neither must the reader 
suppose that all these things I have reported were 
said at any one breakfast-time. I have not taken the 
trouble to date them^ as Raspail, pere, used to date 
every proof he sent to the printer ; but they were 
scattered over several breakfasts ; and I have said a 
good many more things since, which I shall very pos- 
sibly print some time or other, if I am urged to do it 
by judicious friends. 

I finished off with reading some verses of my friend 
the Professor, of whom you may perhaps hear more 



24 AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 

by and by. The Professor read them, he told me, at 
a farewell meeting, where the youngest of our great 
Historians met a few of his many friends at their 
invitation. 

Yes, we knew we must lose him, — though friendship may claim 
To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame ; 
Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, 
'Tis the whisper of love when the bugle has blown. 

As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel, — 
As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, — 
As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, 
He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring. 

What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom 

Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, 

While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes 

That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies ! 

In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of time, 
Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime, 
There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, 
There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue ! 

Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed 
From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed ! 
Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, 
Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his 
broom ! 



The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake 
On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, 
To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine, 
With incense they stole from the rose and the pine. 

So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed 

When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed : 

The true Knight of Learning, — the world holds him 

dear, — 
Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career ! 



II. 

I really believe some people save their bright 
thoughts, as being too precious for conversation. 
What do you think an admiring friend said the 
other day to one that was talking good things, — 
good enough to print? "Why," said he, "you are 
wasting merchantable literature, a cash article, at the 
rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty dollars an hour. 11 
The talker took him to the window and asked him to 
look out and tell what he saw. 

" Nothing but a very dusty street, 11 he said, u and 
a man driving a sprinkling-machine through it. 11 

"Why don^ you tell the man he is wasting that 
water? What would be the state of the highways of 
life, if we did not drive our thought-sprinklers through 
them with the valves open, sometimes? 

" Besides, there is another thing about this talking, 
which you forget. It shapes our thoughts for us ; — 
the waves of conversation roll them as the surf rolls 
the pebbles on the shore. Let me modify the image 
a little. I rough out my thoughts in talk as an artist 
models in clay. Spoken language is so plastic, — 
you can pat and coax, and spread and shave, and 
rub out, and fill up, and stick on so easily, when you 
work that soft material, that there is nothing like it 
for modelling. Out of it come the shapes which you 
turn into marble or bronze in your immortal books, 
if you happen to write such. Or, to use another 
illustration, writing or printing is like shooting with a 

25 



26 THE AUTOCRAT 

rifle ; you may hit your reader's mind, or miss it ; — 
but talking is like playing at a mark with the pipe 
of an engine ; if it is within reach, and you have time 
enough, you can't help hitting it." 

The company agreed that this last illustration was 
of superior excellence, or, in the phrase used by them, 
"Fust-rate." I acknowledged the compliment, but 
gently rebuked the expression. " Fust-rate," " prime," 
"a prime article," "a superior piece of goods," "a 
handsome garment," "a gent in a flowered vest," — 
all such expressions are final. They blast the lineage 
of him or her who utters them, for generations up and 
down. There is one other phrase which will soon 
come to be decisive of a man's social status, if it is 
not already : " That tells the whole story." It is an 
expression which vulgar and conceited people par- 
ticularly affect, and which well-meaning ones, who 
know better, catch from them. It is intended to stop 
all debate, like the previous question in the General 
Court. Only it doesn't ; simply because " that " does 
not usually tell the whole, nor one half of the whole 
story. 

— It is an odd idea, that almost all our people have 
had a professional education. To become a doctor 
a man must study some three years and hear a thou- 
sand lectures, more or less. Just how much study it 
takes to make a lawyer I cannot say, but probably 
not more than this. Now most decent people hear 
one hundred lectures or sermons (discourses) on the- 
ology every year, — and this, twenty, thirty, fifty years 
together. They read a great many religious books 
besides. The clergy, however, rarely hear any ser- 
mons except what they preach themselves. A dull 
preacher might be conceived, therefore, to lapse into 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 27 

a state of quasi heathenism, simply for want of reli- 
gious instruction. And on the other hand, an atten- 
tive and intelligent hearer, listening to a succession 
of wise teachers, might become actually better edu- 
cated in theology than any one of them. We are all 
theological students, and more of us qualified as doc- 
tors of divinity than have received degrees at any of 
the universities. 

It is not strange, therefore, that very good people 
should often find it difficult, if not impossible, to keep 
their attention fixed upon a sermon treating feebly a 
subject which they have thought vigorously about for 
years, and heard able men discuss scores of times. I 
have often noticed, however, that a hopelessly dull 
discourse acts inductively, as electricians would say, 
in developing strong mental currents. I am ashamed 
to think with what accompaniments and variations 
and fioriture I have sometimes followed the droning 
of a heavy speaker, — not willingly, — for my habit is 
reverential, — but as a necessary result of a slight con- 
tinuous impression on the senses and the mind, which 
kept both in action without furnishing the food they 
required to work upon. If you ever saw a crow with 
a king-bird after him, you will get an image of a dull 
speaker and a lively listener. The bird in sable plum- 
age flaps heavily along his straight-forward course, 
while the other sails round him, over him, under him, 
leaves him, comes back again, tweaks out a black 
feather, shoots away once more, never losing sight 
of him, and finally reaches the crow's perch at the 
same time the crow does, having cut a perfect laby- 
rinth of loops and knots and spirals while the slow 
fowl was painfully working from one end of his straight 
line to the other. 



28 THE AUTOCRAT 

[I think these remarks were received rather coolly. 
A temporary boarder from the country, consisting of 
a somewhat more than middle-aged female, with a 
parchment forehead and a dry little " frisette " shin- 
gling it, a sallow neck with a necklace of gold beads, 
a black dress too rusty for recent grief and contours 
in basso-rilievo, left the table prematurely, and was 
reported to have been very virulent about what I said. 
So I went to my good old minister, and repeated the 
remarks, as nearly as I could remember them, to him. 
He laughed good-naturedly, and said there was con- 
siderable truth in them. He thought he could tell 
when people's minds were wandering, by their looks. 
In the earlier years of his ministry he had sometimes 
noticed this, when he was preaching ; — very little of 
late years. Sometimes, when his colleague was preach- 
ing, he observed this kind of inattention ; but after 
all, it was not so very unnatural. I will say, by the 
way, that it is a rule I have long followed, to tell my 
worst thoughts to my minister, and my best thoughts 
to the young people I talk with.] 

— I want to make a literary confession now, which 
I believe nobody has made before me. You know 
very well that I write verses sometimes, because I 
have read some of them at this table. (The com- 
pany assented, — two or three of them in a resigned 
sort of way, as I thought, as if they supposed I had 
an epic in my pocket, and was going to read half 
a dozen books or so for their benefit.) — I contin- 
ued. Of course I write some lines or passages which 
are better than others ; some which, compared with 
the others, might be called relatively excellent. It 
is in the nature of things that I should consider 
these relatively excellent lines or passages as abso- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 29 

lutely good. So much must be pardoned to human- 
ity. Now I never wrote a "good 1 ' line in my life, 
but the moment after it was written it seemed a hun- 
dred years old. Very commonly I had a sudden con- 
viction that I had seen it somewhere. Possibly I 
may have, sometimes unconsciously stolen it, but I 
do not remember that I ever once detected any his- 
torical truth in these sudden convictions of the an- 
tiquity of my new thought or phrase. I have learned 
utterly to distrust them, and never allow them to bully 
me out of a thought or line. 

This is the philosophy of it. (Here the number 
of the company was diminished by a small secession.) 
Any new formula which suddenly emerges in our con- 
sciousness has its roots in long trains of thought ; it 
is virtually old when it first makes its appearance 
among the recognized growths of our intellect. Any 
crystalline group of musical words has had a long 
and still period to form in. Here is one theory. 

But there is a larger law which perhaps compre- 
hends these facts. It is this. The rapidity with 
which ideas grow old in our memories is in a direct 
ratio to the squares of their importance. Their ap- 
parent age runs up miraculously, like the value of 
diamonds, as they increase in magnitude. A great 
calamity, for instance, is as old as the trilobites an 
hour after it has happened. It stains backward 
through all the leaves we have turned over in the 
book of life, before its blot of tears or of blood is dry 
on the page we are turning. For this we seem to 
have lived ; it was foreshadowed in dreams that we 
leaped out of in the cold sweat of terror; in the 
" dissolving views " of dark day-visions ; all omens 
pointed to it ; all paths led to it. After the tossing 



30 THE AUTOCRAT 

half-forgetfulness of the first sleep that follows such 
an event, it comes upon us afresh, as a surprise, at 
waking ; in a few moments it is old again, — old as 
eternity. 

[I wish I had not said all this then and there. I 
might have known better. The pale schoolmistress, 
in her mourning dress, was looking at me, as I noticed, 
with a wild sort of expression. All at once the blood 
dropped out of her cheeks as the mercury drops from 
a broken barometer-tube, and she melted away from 
her seat like an image of snow ; a slung-shot could 
not have brought her down better. God forgive me ! 

After this little episode, I continued, to some few 
that remained balancing teaspoons on the edges of 
cups, twirling knives, or tilting upon the hind legs of 
their chairs until their heads reached the wall, where 
they left gratuitous advertisements of various popular 
cosmetics.] 

When a person is suddenly thrust into any strange, 
new position of trial, he finds the place fits him as 
if he had been measured for it. He has committed 
a great crime, for instance, and is sent to the State 
Prison. The traditions, prescriptions, limitations, 
privileges, all the sharp conditions of his new life, 
stamp themselves upon his consciousness as the sig- 
net on soft wax ; — a single pressure is enough. Let 
me strengthen the image a little. Did you ever 
happen to see that most soft-spoken and velvet- 
handed steam-engine at the Mint? The smooth 
piston slides backward and forward as a lady might 
slip her delicate finger in and out of a ring. The 
engine lays one of its fingers calmly, but firmly, upon 
a bit of metal ; it is a coin now, and will remember 
that touch, and tell a new race about it, when the date 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 31 

upon it is crusted over with twenty centuries. So 
it is that a great silent-moving misery puts a new stamp 
on us in an hour or a moment, — as sharp an impres- 
sion as if it had taken half a lifetime to engrave it. 

It is awful to be in the hands of the wholesale 
professional dealers in misfortune: undertakers and 
jailers magnetize you in a moment, and you pass 
out of the individual life you were living into the 
rhythmical movements of their horrible machinery. 
Do the worst thing you can, or suffer the worst that 
can be thought of, you find yourself in a category of 
humanity that stretches back as far as Cain, and with 
an expert at your elbow who has studied your case all 
out beforehand, and is waiting for you with his imple- 
ments of hemp or mahogany. I believe, if a man were 
to be burned in any of our cities to-morrow for heresy, 
there would be found a master of ceremonies that 
knew just how many fagots were necessary, and the 
best way of arranging the whole matter. 

— So we have not won the Goodwood cup ; au con- 
traire, we were a " bad fifth," if not worse than that ; 
and trying it again, and the third time, has not yet 
bettered the matter. Now I am as patriotic as any of my 
fellow-citizens, — too patriotic in fact, for I have got 
into hot water by loving too much of my country ; in 
short, if any man, whose fighting weight is not more 
than eight stone four pounds, disputes it, I am ready 
to discuss the point with him. I should have gloried 
to see the stars and stripes in front at the finish. I 
love my country, and I love horses. Stubbs's old 
mezzotint of Eclipse hangs over my desk, and Her- 
ring^ portrait of Plenipotentiary, — whom I saw run at 
Epsom, — over my fireplace. Did I not elope from 
school to see Revenge, and Prospect, and Little John, 



32 THE AUTOCRAT 

and Peacemaker run over the race-course where now 
yon suburban village flourishes, in the year eigh- 
teen hundred and ever-so-few? Though I never 
owned a horse, have I not been the proprietor of six 
equine females, of which one was the prettiest little 
"Morgin 11 that ever stepped? Listen, then, to an 
opinion I have often expressed long before this ven- 
ture of ours in England. Horse-racing is not a repub- 
lican institution ; horse-trotting is. Only very rich 
persons can keep race-horses, and everybody knows 
they are kept mainly as gambling implements. All 
that matter about blood and speed we wont discuss ; 
we understand all that ; useful, very, — of course, — 
great obligations to the Godolphin "Arabian, 11 and 
the rest. I say racing horses are essentially gambling 
implements, as much as roulette tables. Now I am 
not preaching at this moment ; I may read you one 
of my sermons some other morning ; but I maintain 
that gambling, on the great scale, is not republican. 
It belongs to two phases of society, — a cankered over- 
civilization, such as exists in rich aristocracies, and the 
reckless life of borderers and adventurers, or the semi- 
barbarism of a civilization resolved into its primitive 
elements. Real Republicanism is stern and severe; 
its essence is not in forms of government, but in the 
omnipotence of public opinion which grows out of it. 
This public opinion cannot prevent gambling with 
dice or stocks, but it can and does compel it to keep 
comparatively quiet. But horse-racing is the most 
public way of gambling; and with all its immense 
attractions to the sense and the feelings, — to which 
I plead very susceptible, — the disguise is too thin 
that covers it, and everybody knows what it means. 
Its supporters are the Southern gentry, — fine fellows. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 33 

no doubt, but not republicans exactly, as we under- 
stand the term, — a few Northern millionnaires more 
or less thoroughly million ed, who do not represent 
the real people, and the mob of sporting men, the 
best of whom are commonly idlers, and the worst very 
bad neighbors to have near one in a crowd, or to 
meet in a dark alley. In England, on the other hand, 
with its aristocratic institutions, racing is a natural 
growth enough ; the passion for it spreads downwards 
through all classes, from the Queen to the costermongen 
London is like a shelled corn-cob on the Derby day, 
and there is not a clerk who could raise the money to 
hire a saddle with an old hack under it that can sit 
down on his office-stool the next day without wincing. 

Now just compare the racer with the trotter for a 
moment. The racer is incidentally useful, but essen- 
tially something to bet upon, as much as the thimble- 
rigger's " little joker."" The trotter is essentially and 
daily useful, and only incidentally a tool for sporting 
men. 

What better reason do you want for the fact that 
the racer is most cultivated and reaches his greatest 
perfection in England, and that the trotting horses 
of America beat the world ? And why should we 
have expected that the pick — if it was the pick — of 
our few and far-between racing stables should beat 
the pick of England and France ? Throw over the 
fallacious time-test, and there was nothing to show 
for it but a natural kind of patriotic feeling, which we 
all have, with a thoroughly provincial conceit, which 
some of us must plead guilty to. 

We may beat yet. As an American, I hope we 
shall. As a moralist and occasional sermonizer, I 
am not so anxious about it. Wherever the trotting 



34 THE AUTOCRAT 

horse goes, he carries in his train brisk omnibuses, 
lively bakers' carts, and therefore hot rolls, the jolly 
butcher's wagon, the cheerful gig, the wholesome 
afternoon drive with wife and child, — all the forms 
of moral excellence, except truth, which does not 
agree with any kind of horse-flesh. The racer brings 
with him gambling, cursing, swearing, drinking, the 
eating of oysters, and a distaste for mob-caps and the 
middle-aged virtues. 

And by the way, let me beg you not to call a trot- 
ting match a race, and not to speak of a " thorough- 
bred " as a "blooded" horse, unless he has been 
recently phlebotomized. I consent to your saying 
" blood horse," if you like. Also, if, next year, we 
send out Posterior and Posterioress, the winners of 
the great national four-mile race in 7 18 J, and they 
happen to get beaten, pay your bets, and behave like 
men and gentlemen about it, if you know how. 

[I felt a great deal better after blowing off the ill- 
temper condensed in the above paragraph. To brag 
little, — to show well, — to crow gently, if in luck, — 
to pay up, to own up, and to shut up, if beaten, are 
the virtues of a sporting man, and I can't say that I 
think we have shown them in any great perfection of 
late.] 

— Apropos of horses. Do you know how impor- 
tant goocl jockeying is to authors ? Judicious man- 
agement ; letting the public see your animal just 
enough, and not too much ; holding him up hard 
when the market is too full of him ; letting him out 
at just the right buying intervals ; always gently feel- 
ing his mouth ; never slacking and never jerking the 
rein ; — this is what I mean by jockeying. 

— When an author has a number of books out, a 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 35 

cunning hand will keep them all spinning, as Signor 
Blitz does his dinner-plates ; fetching each one up, as 
it begins to " wabble," by an advertisement, a puff, or 
a quotation. 

— Whenever the extracts from a living writer begin 
to multiply fast in the papers, without obvious reason, 
there is a new book or a new edition coming. The 
extracts are ground-bait. 

— Literary life is full of curious phenomena. I 
don't know that there is anything more noticeable 
than what we may call conventional reputations. 
There is a tacit understanding in every community 
of men of letters that they will not disturb the pop- 
ular fallacy respecting this or that electro-gilded 
celebrity. There are various reasons for this forbear- 
ance : one is old ; one is rich ; one is good-natured ; 
one is such a favorite with the pit that it would not 
be safe to hiss him from the manager's box. The 
venerable augurs of the literary or scientific temple 
may smile faintly when one of the tribe is mentioned ; 
but the farce is in general kept up as well as the 
Chinese comic scene of entreating and imploring a 
man to stay with you, with the implied compact 
between you that he shall by no means think of 
doing it. A poor wretch he must be who would 
wantonly sit down on one of these bandbox reputa- 
tions. A Prince-RupertVdrop, which is a tear of 
unannealed glass, lasts indefinitely, if you keep it 
from meddling hands ; but break its tail off, and it 
explodes and resolves itself into powder. These 
celebrities I speak of are the Prince-Rupert's-drops 
of the learned and polite world. See how the papers 
treat them ! What an array of pleasant kaleido- 
scopic phrases, which can be arranged in ever so 



36 THE AUTOCRAT 

many charming patterns, is at their service ! How 
kind the " Critical Notices " — where small author- 
ship comes to pick up chips of praise, fragrant, 
sugary, and sappy — always are to them ! Well, 
life would be nothing without paper-credit and other 
fictions ; so let them pass current. Don't steal their 
chips ; don't puncture their swimming-bladders ; don't 
come down on their pasteboard boxes ; don't break 
the ends of their brittle and unstable reputations, you 
fellows who all feel sure that your names will be 
household words a thousand years from now. 

" A thousand years is a good while," said the old 
gentleman who sits opposite, thoughtfully. 

— Where have I been for the last three or four 
days? Down at the Island, deer-shooting. — How 
many did I bag? I brought home one buck shot. — 
The Island is where? No matter. It is the most 
splendid domain that any man looks upon in these 
latitudes. Blue sea around it, and running up into 
its heart, so that the little boat slumbers like a baby 
in lap, while the tall ships are stripping naked to 
fight the hurricane outside, and storm-stay-sails bang- 
ing and flying in ribbons. Trees, in stretches of 
miles ; beeches, oaks, most numerous ; — many of 
them hung with moss, looking like bearded Druids ; 
some coiled in the clasp of huge, dark-stemmed 
grape-vines. Open patches where the sun gets in 
and goes to sleep, and the winds come so finely 
sifted that they are as soft as swan's down. Rocks 
scattered ab'out, — Stonehenge-like monoliths. Fresh- 
water lakes : one of them, Mary's lake, crystal-clear, 
full of flashing pickerel lying under the lily-pads like 
tigers in the jungle. Six pounds of ditto killed one 
morning for breakfast. Ego fecit. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 37 

The divinity-student looked as if he would like to 
question my Latin. No, sir, I said, — you need not 
trouble yourself. There is a higher law in grammar, 
not to be put down by Andrews and Stoddard. Then 
I went on. 

Such hospitality as that island has seen there has 
not been the like of in these our New England sov- 
ereignties. There is nothing in the shape of kind- 
ness and courtesy that can make life beautiful, which 
has not found its home in that ocean-principality. 
It has welcomed all who were worthy of welcome, 
from the pale clergyman who came to breathe the 
sea-air with its medicinal salt and iodine, to the 
great statesman who turned his back on the affairs 
of empire, and smoothed his Olympian forehead, 
and flashed his white teeth in merriment over the 
long table, where his wit was the keenest and his 
story the best. 

[I don't believe any man ever talked like that in 
this world. I don't believe / talked just so ; but the 
fact is, in reporting one's conversation, one cannot 
help Blair-mg it up more or less, ironing out crumpled 
paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping and 
plaiting a little sometimes ; it is as natural as prink- 
ing at the looking-glass.] 

— How can a man help writing poetry in such a 
place? Everybody does write poetry that goes there. 
In the state archives, kept in the library of the Lord 
of the Isle, are whole volumes of unpublished verse, 
— some by well-known hands, and others, quite as 
good, by the last people you would think of as ver- 
sifiers, — men who could pension off all the genuine 
poets in the country, and buy ten acres of Boston 
common, if it was for sale, with what they had left. 



38 THE AUTOCRAT 

Of course I had to write my little copy of verses 
with the rest ; here it is, if you will hear me read it. 
When the sun is in the west, vessels sailing in an 
easterly direction look bright or dark to one who 
observes them from the north or south, according to 
the tack they are sailing upon. Watching them 
from one of the windows of the great mansion, I saw 
these perpetual changes, and moralized thus : — 

SUN AND SHADOW. 

As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green, 

To the billows of foam-crested blue, 
Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, 

Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue : 
Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray 

As the chaff in the stroke of the flail ; 
Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way, 

The sun gleaming bright on her sail. 

Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun, — 

Of breakers that whiten and roar ; 
How little he cares, if in shadow or sun 

They see him that gaze from the shore ! 
He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef, 

To the rock that is under his lee, 
As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf, 

O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea. 

Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves 

Where life and its ventures are laid, 
The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves 

May see us in sunshine or shade ; 
Yet true to our course, though our shadow grow dark, 

We '11 trim our broad sail as before, 
And stand by the rudder that governs the bark, 

Nor ask how we look from the shore ! 

— Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind 
overtasked. Good mental machinery ought to break 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 39 

its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust among 
them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse 
their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate 
force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a 
man from going mad. We frequently see persons 
in insane hospitals, sent there in consequence of what 
are called religions mental disturbances. I confess 
that I think better of them than of many who hold 
the same notions, and keep their wits and appear to 
enjoy life very well, outside of the asylums. Any 
decent person ought to go mad, if he really holds 
such or such opinions. It is very much to his dis- 
credit in every point of view, if he does not. What 
is the use of my saying what some of these opinions 
are? Perhaps more than one of you hold such as I 
should think ought to send you straight over to 
Somerville, if you have any logic in your heads or 
any human feeling in your hearts. Anything that is 
brutal, cruel, heathenish, that makes life hopeless for 
the most of mankind and perhaps for entire races, — 
anything that assumes the necessity of the extermi- 
nation of instincts which were given to be regulated, 

— no matter by what name you call it, — no matter 
whether a fakir, or a monk, or a deacon believes it, 

— if received, ought to produce insanity in every 
well-regulated mind. That condition becomes a 
normal one, under the circumstances. I am very 
much ashamed of some people for retaining their 
reason, when they know perfectly well that if they 
were not the most stupid or the most selfish of human 
beings, they would become non-compotes at once. 

[Nobody understood this but the theological stu- 
dent and the schoolmistress. They looked intelli- 
gently at each other ; but whether they were thinking 



40 THE AUTOCRAT 

about my paradox or not, I am not clear. — It would 
be natural enough. Stranger things have happened. 
Love and Death enter boarding-houses without ask- 
ing the price of board, or whether there is room for 
them. Alas, these young people are poor and pallid ! 
Love should be both rich and rosy, but must be either 
rich or rosy. Talk about military duty ! What is 
that to the warfare of a married maid-of-all-work, 
with the title of mistress, and an American female 
constitution, which collapses just in the middle third 
of life, and comes out vulcanized India-rubber, if it 
happen to live through the period when health and 
strength are most wanted?] 

— Have I ever acted in private theatricals? Often. 
I have played the part of the " Poor Gentleman," be- 
fore a great many audiences, — more, I trust, than 
I shall ever face again. I did not wear a stage-cos- 
tume, nor a wig, nor moustaches of burnt cork ; but 
I was placarded and announced as a public performer, 
and at the proper hour I came forward with the ballet- 
dancer's smile upon my countenance, and made my 
bow and acted my part. I have seen my name stuck 
up in letters so big that I was ashamed to show my- 
self in the place by daylight. I have gone to a town 
with a sober literary essay in my pocket, and seen 
myself everywhere announced as the most desperate 
of buffos, — one who was obliged to restrain himself 
in the full exercise of his powers, from prudential con- 
siderations. I have been through as many hardships 
as Ulysses, in the pursuit of my histrionic vocation. I 
have travelled in cars until the conductors all knew 
me like a brother. I have run off the rails, and stuck 
all night in snow-drifts, and sat behind females that 
would have the window open when one could not wink 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 4 1 

without his eyelids freezing together. Perhaps I shall 
give you some of my experiences one of these days ; — 
I will not now, for I have something else for you. 

Private theatricals, as I have figured in them in 
country lyceum-halls, are one thing, — and private 
theatricals, as they may be seen in certain gilded and 
frescoed saloons of our metropolis, are another. Yes, 
it is pleasant to see real gentlemen and ladies, who do 
not think it necessary to mouth, and rant, and stride, 
like most of our stage heroes and heroines, in the 
characters which show off their graces and talents ; 
most of all to see a fresh, unrouged, unspoiled, high- 
bred young maiden, with a lithe figure, and a pleasant 
voice, acting in those love-dramas which make us 
young again to look upon, when real youth and 
beauty will play them for us. 

— Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked to 
write. I did not see the play, though. I knew there 
was a young lady in it, and that somebody was in love 
with her, and she was in love with him, and somebody 
(an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and, very 
naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him. The 
play of course ends charmingly ; there is a general 
reconciliation, and all concerned form a line and take 
each others' hands, as people always do after they 
have made up their quarrels, — and then the curtain 
falls, — if it does not stick, as it commonly does at 
private theatrical exhibitions, in which case a boy 
is detailed to pull it down, which he does, blushing 
violently. 

Now, then, for my prologue. I am not going to 
change my caesuras and cadences for anybody ; so if 
you do not like the heroic, or iambic trimeter brachy- 
catalectic, you had better not wait to hear it. 



42 THE AUTOCRAT 



THIS IS IT. 

A Prologue ? Well, of course the ladies know ; — 
I have my doubts. No matter, — here we go ! 
What is a Prologue ? Let our Tutor teach : 
Pro means beforehand ; logos stands for speech. 
'T is like the harper's prelude on the strings, 
The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings ; — 
Prologues in metre are to other pros 
As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. 

" The world's a stage," — as Shakspeare said, one day; 

The stage a world — was what he meant to say. 

The outside world 's a blunder, that is clear ; 

The real world that Nature meant is here. 

Here every foundling finds its lost mamma; 

Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa ; 

Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid, 

The cheats are taken in the traps they laid ; 

One after one the troubles all are past 

Till the fifth act comes right side up at last, 

When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all, 

Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall. 

— Here suffering virtue ever finds relief, 

And black-browed ruffians always come to grief, 

— When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech, 
And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach, 

Cries, " Help, kyind Heaven ! " and drops upon her knees 
On the green — baize, — beneath the (canvas) trees, — 
See to her side avenging Valor fly : — 
" Ha ! Villain ! Draw ! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die ! " 

— When the poor hero flounders in despair, 
Some dear lost uncle turns up millionnaire, — 
Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy, 

Sobs on his neck, "My boy ! My BOY ! ! MY BOY ! ! ! " 

Ours, then, sweet friends, the real world to-night. 
Of love that conquers in disaster's spite. 
Ladies, attend! While woful cares and doubt 
Wrong the soft passion in the world without, 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 43 

Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere, 
One thing is certain : Love will triumph here ! 

Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule, — 

The world's great masters, when you're out of school, — 

Learn the brief moral of our evening's play : 

Man has his will, — but woman has her way ! 

While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire, 

Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire, — 

The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves 

Beats the black giant with his score of slaves. 

All earthly powers confess your sovereign art 

But that one rebel, — woman's wilful heart. 

All foes you master ; but a woman's wit 

Lets daylight through you ere you know you're hit. 

So, just to picture what her art can do, 

Hear an old story made as good as new. 

Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, 

Alike was famous for his arm and blade. 

One day a prisoner Justice had to kill 

Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill. 

Bare-armed, swart -visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed, 

Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. 

His falchion lightened with a sudden gleam, 

As the pike's* armor flashes in the stream. 

He sheathed his blade ; he turned as if to go ; 

The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow. 

" Why strikest not ? Perform thy murderous act," 

The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.) 

" Friend, I have struck," the artist straight replied ; 

" Wait but one moment, and yourself decide." 

He held his snuff-box, — " Now then, if you please ! " 

The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze, 

Off his head tumbled, — bowled along the floor, — 

Bounced down the steps ; — the prisoner said no more ! 

Woman ! thy falchion is a glittering eye ; 
If death lurks in it, oh, how sweet to die ! 
Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head ; 
We die with love, and never dream we 're dead ! 



44 THE AUTOCRAT 

The prologue went off very well, as I hear. No 
alterations were suggested by the lady to whom it was 
sent, so far as I know. Sometimes people criticize 
the poems one sends them, and suggest all sorts of 
improvement. Who was that silly body that wanted 
Burns to alter " Scots wha hae," so as to lengthen the 
last line, thus ? — 

■' Edward! " Chains and slavery ! 

Here is a little poem I sent a short time since to a 
committee for a certain celebration. I understood 
that it was to be a festive and convivial occasion, and 
ordered myself accordingly. It seems the president 
of the day was what is called a " teetotaller. 1 ' I 
received a note from him in the following words, 
containing the copy subjoined, with the emendations 
annexed to it. 

" Dear Sir, — your poem gives good satisfaction to 
the committee. The sentiments expressed with ref- 
erence to liquor are not, however, those generally 
entertained by this community. I have therefore 
consulted the clergyman of this place, who has made 
some slight changes, which he thinks will remove all 
objections, and keep the valuable portions of the poem. 
Please to inform me of your charge for said poem. 
Our means are limited, etc., etc., etc. 

" Yours with respect." 

HERE IT IS, — WITH THE SLIGHT ALTERATIONS/ 

Come ! fill a fresh bumper, — for why should we go 

logwood 
While the n e ctar still reddens our cups as they flow? 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLEx 45 

tTecoction 
Pour out the rich juice s still Drightrwith the sun, 

dye-stuff 

Till o'er the brimmed crystal the tttbies- shall run. 

half-ripetted apples 
The purple globed cluster s their life-dews have bled; 

taste sugar of lead 

How sweet is the breath of the fragrance they ohod -4 

rank poisons wines f/f 

'For summer's last rosea lie hid in the wines 

stable-boys smoking long-nines. 

That were garnered by maidens who laughed through the 

scowl - howl scoff sneer 

Then a smil e, and a g lass, and a toast , and a e hce r, 

strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer 
For all th e- good wine, and wo ' vc some of it here 4 
In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, 

■Down, down, with the tyrant that masters us all I 
Long liv e the gay servant that laughs fur us all! 1 

The company said I had been shabbily treated, and 
advised me to charge the committee double, — which 
I did. But as I never got my pay, I don't know that 
it made much difference. I am a very particular 
person about having all I write printed as I write it. 
I require to see a proof, a revise, a re-revise, and a 
double re-revise, or fourth-proof rectified impression 
of all my productions, especially verse. A misprint 
kills a sensitive author. An intentional change of 
his text murders him. No wonder so many poets die 
young ! 

I have nothing more to report at this time, except 
two pieces of advice I gave to the young women at 



46 A UTOCRA T OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

table. One relates to a vulgarism of language, which 
I grieve to say is sometimes heard even from female 
lips. The other is of more serious purport, and 
applies to such as contemplate a change of condition, 
— matrimony, in fact. 

— The woman who " calc'lates " is lost. 

— Put not your trust in money, but put your money 
in trust. 



III. 

[The "Atlantic" obeys the moon, and its Luni- 
versary has come round again. I have gathered up 
some hasty notes of my remarks made since the last 
high tides, which I respectfully submit. Please to 
remember this is talk ; just as easy and just as formal 
as I choose to make it.] 

— I never saw an author in my life — saving, per- 
haps, one — that did not purr as audibly as a full- 
grown domestic cat, (jFelzs Catus, Linn.,) on having 
his fur smoothed in the right way by a skilful hand. 

But let me give you a caution. Be very careful how 
you tell an author he is droll. Ten to one he will hate 
you ; and if he does, be sure he can do you a mischief, 
and very probably will. Say you cried over his 
romance or his verses, and he will love you and send 
you a copy. You can laugh over that as much as you 
like — in private. 

— Wonder why authors and actors are ashamed of 
being funny? — Why, there are obvious reasons, and 
deep philosophical ones. The clown knows very well 
that the women are not in love with him, but with 
Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and plumed 
hat. Passion never laughs. The wit knows that his 
place is at the tail of a procession. 

If you want the deep underlying reason, I must take 
more time to tell it. There is a perfect consciousness 
in every form of wit — using that term in its general 

47 



48 THE AUTOCRAT 

sense — that its essence consists in a partial and in- 
complete view of whatever it touches. It throws a 
single ray, separated from the rest, — red, yellow, 
blue, or any intermediate shade, — upon an object; 
never white light ; that is the province of wisdom,, 
We get beautiful effects from wit, — all the prismatic 
colors, — but never the object as it is in fair daylight. 
A pun, which is a kind of wit, is a different and much 
shallower trick in mental optics throwing the shadows 
of two objects so that one overlies the other. Poetry 
uses the rainbow tints for special effects, but always 
keeps its essential object in the purest white light of 
truth. — Will you allow me to pursue this subject a 
little further? 

[They didn't allow me at that time, for somebody 
happened to scrape the floor with his chair just then ; 
which accidental sound, as all must have noticed, has 
the instantaneous effect that the cutting of the yellow 
hair by Iris had upon infelix Dido. It broke the 
charm, and that breakfast was over.] 

— Don't flatter yourselves that friendship authorizes 
you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. On 
the contrary, the nearer you come into relation with 
a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy 
become. Except in cases of necessity, which are 
rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant truths from 
his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them. 
Good-breeding never forgets that a,7nonr-propre is 
universal. When you read the story of the Arch- 
bishop and Gil Bias, you may laugh, if you will, at 
the poor old man's delusion; but don't forget that 
the youth was the greater fool of the two, and that 
his master served such a booby rightly in turning him 
out of doors. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 49 

— You need not get up a rebellion against what I 
say, if you find everything in my sayings is not exactly 
new. You can't possibly mistake a man who means 
to be honest for a literary pickpocket. I once read an 
introductory lecture that looked to me too learned for 
its latitude. On examination, I found all its erudition 
was taken ready-made from D'Israeli. If I had been 
ill-natured, I should have shown up the little great 
man, who had once belabored me in his feeble way. 
But one can generally tell these wholesale thieves 
easily enough, and they are not worth the trouble of 
putting them in the pillory. I doubt the entire nov- 
elty of my remarks just made on telling unpleasant 
truths, yet I am not conscious of any larceny. 

Neither make too much of flaws and occasional 
overstatements. Some persons seem to think that 
absolute truth, in the form of rigidly stated proposi- 
tions, is all that conversation admits. This is pre- 
cisely as if a musician should insist on having nothing 
but perfect chords and simple melodies, — no dimin- 
ished fifths, no flat sevenths, no flourishes, on any 
account. Now it is fair to say, that, just as music 
must have all these, so conversation must have its 
partial truths, its embellished truths, its exaggerated 
truths. It is in its higher forms an artistic product, 
and admits the ideal element as much as pictures 
or statues. One man who is a little too literal can 
spoil the talk of a whole tableful of men of esprit. — 
"Yes," you say, "but who wants to hear fanciful 
people's nonsense? Put the facts to it, and then 
see where it is I " — Certainly, if a man is too 
fond of paradox, — if he is flighty and empty, — if, 
instead of striking those fifths and sevenths, those 
harmonious discords, often so much better than the 



50 THE AUTOCRAT 

twinned octaves in the music of thought, — if, instead 
of striking these, he jangles the chords, stick a fact 
into him like a stiletto. But remember that talking 
is one of the fine arts, — the noblest, the most impor- 
tant, and the most difficult, — and that its fluent har- 
monies may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single 
harsh note. Therefore conversation which is sug- 
gestive rather than argumentative, which lets out the 
most of each talkers results of thought, is commonly 
the pleasantest and the most profitable. It is not 
easy, at the best, for two persons talking together 
to make the most of each other's thoughts, there are 
so many of them. 

[The company looked as if they wanted an expla- 
nation.] 

When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking 
together, it is natural enough that among the six there 
should be more or less confusion and misapprehen- 
sion. 

[Our landlady turned pale ; — no doubt she thought 
there was a screw loose in my intellects, — and that 
involved the probable loss of a boarder. A severe- 
looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad 
cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom 
I understand to be the professional ruffian of the 
neighboring theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of 
the brow, drawing down of the corners of the mouth, 
and somewhat rasping voce di petto, to FalstafFs nine 
men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe 
the old gentleman opposite was afraid I should seize 
the carving-knife ; at any rate, he slid it to one side, 
as it were carelessly.] 

I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin 
Franklin here, that there are at least six personalities 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 5 I 

distinctly to be recognized as taking part in that dia- 
logue between John and Thomas. 

1. The real John; known only to his 

Maker. 
. John's ideal John; never the real one, 
Three Johns. - and often very unlike him. 

. Thomas's ideal John; never the real 
John, nor John's John, but often very 
unlike either, 
r 1. The real Thomas. 
Three Thomases. \ 2. Thomas's ideal Thomas. 
I 3. John's ideal Thomas. 

Only one of the three Johns is taxed ; only one 
can be weighed on a platform-balance ; but the other 
two are just as important in the conversation. Let 
us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and ill-look- 
ing. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred 
on men the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, 
John very possibly conceives himself to be youthful, 
witty, and fascinating, and talks from the point of view 
of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to be an 
artful rogue, we will say ; therefore he is, so far as 
Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, 
an artful rogue, though really simple and stupid. The 
same conditions apply to the three Thomases. It 
follows, that, until a man can be found who knows 
himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself 
as others see him, there must be at least six persons 
engaged in every dialogue between two. Of these, 
the least important, philosophically speaking, is the 
one that we have called the real person. No wonder 
two disputants often get angry, when there are six of 
them talking and listening all at the same time. 

[A very unphilosophical application of the above 
remarks was made by a young fellow, answering to 



52 THE AUTOCRAT 

the name of John, who sits near me at table. A cer- 
tain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little known 
to boarding-houses, was on its way to me vid this 
unlettered Johannes. He appropriated the three that 
remained in the basket, remarking that there was just 
one apiece for him. I convinced him that his practi- 
cal inference was hasty and illogical, but in the mean 
time he had eaten the peaches.] 

— The opinions of relatives as to a man's powers 
are very commonly of little value ; not merely because 
they sometimes overrate their own flesh and blood, 
as some may suppose ; on the contrary, they are quite 
as likely to underrate those whom they have grown 
into the habit of considering like themselves. The 
advent of genius is like what florists style the break- 
ing of a seedling tulip into what we may call high- 
caste colors, — ten thousand dingy flowers, then one 
with the divine streak ; or, if you prefer it, like the 
coming up in old Jacob's garden of that most gentle- 
manly little fruit, the seckel pear, which I have some- 
times seen in shop-windows. It is a surprise, — there 
is nothing to account for it. All at once we find that 
twice two makeyz^. Nature is fond of what are called 
"gift-enterprises.'" This little book of life which she 
has given into the hands of its joint possessors is 
commonly one of the old story-books bound over 
again. Only once in a great while there is a stately 
poem in it, or its leaves are illuminated with the glo- 
ries of art, or they enfold a draft for untold values 
signed by the million-fold millionnaire old mother 
herself. But strangers are commonly the first to find 
the "gift" that came with the little book. 

It may be questioned whether anything can be con- 
scious of its own flavor. Whether the musk-deer, or 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 53 

the civet-cat, or even a still more eloquently silent 
animal that might be mentioned, is aware of any per- 
sonal peculiarity, may well be doubted. No man 
knows his own voice ; many men do not know their 
own profiles. Every one remembers Carlyle^ famous 
"Characteristics" article; allow for exaggerations, 
and there is a great deal in his doctrine of the self-un- 
consciousness of genius . It comes under the great law 
just stated. This incapacity of knowing its own traits 
is often found in the family as well as in the individual. 
So never mind what your cousins, brothers, sisters, 
uncles, aunts, and the rest, say about that fine poem 
you have written, but send it (postage-paid) to the 
editors, if there are any, of the u Atlantic," — which, 
by the way, is not so called because it is a notion, 
as some dull wits wish they had said, but are too late. 
— Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest 
persons, has mingled with it a something which par- 
takes of insolence. Absolute, peremptory facts are 
bullies, and those who keep company with them are 
apt to get a bullying habit of mind ; — not of man- 
ners, perhaps ; they may be soft and smooth, but the 
smile they carry has a quiet assertion in it, such as 
the Champion of the Heavy Weights, commonly the 
best-natured, but not the most diffident of men, wears 
upon what he very inelegantly calls his " mug." 
Take the man, for instance, who deals in the mathe- 
matical sciences. There is no elasticity in a mathe- 
matical fact ; if you bring up against it, it never 
yields a hair^s breadth ; everything must go to pieces 
that comes in collision with it. What the mathema- 
tician knows being absolute, unconditional, inca- 
pable of suffering question, it should tend, in the 
nature of things, to breed a despotic way of thinking. 



54 THE AUTOCRAT 

So of those who deal with the palpable and often 
unmistakable facts of external nature; only in a 
less degree. Every probability — and most of our 
common, working beliefs are probabilities — is pro- 
vided with buffers at both ends, which break the 
force of opposite opinions clashing against it ; but 
scientific certainty has no spring in it, no courtesy, 
no possibility of yielding. All this must react on the 
minds which handle these forms of truth. 

— Oh, you need not tell me that Messrs. A. and B. 
are the most gracious, unassuming people in the 
world, and yet preeminent in the ranges of science I 
am referring to. I know that as well as you. But 
mark this which I am going to say once for all : If 
I had not force enough to project a principle full in 
the face of the half dozen most obvious facts which 
seem to contradict it, I would think only in single 
file from this day forward. A rash man, once visit- 
ing a certain noted institution at South Boston, 
ventured to express the sentiment, that man is a 
rational being. An old woman who was an attendant 
in the Idiot School contradicted the statement, and 
appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove 
it. The rash man stuck to his hasty generalization, 
notwithstanding. 

[ — It is my desire to be useful to those with whom 
I am associated in my daily relations. I not unfre- 
quently practise the divine art of music in company 
with our landlady's daughter, who, as I mentioned 
before, is the owner of an accordion. Having myself 
a well-marked barytone voice of more than half an 
octave in compass, I sometimes add my vocal powers 
to her execution of 

" Thou, thou reign'st in this bosom," 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 55 

not, however, unless her mother or some other dis- 
creet female is present, to prevent misinterpretation 
or remark. I have also taken a good deal of interest 
in Benjamin Franklin, before referred to, sometimes 
called B. F., or more frequently Frank, in imitation 
of that felicitous abbreviation, combining dignity and 
convenience, adopted by some of his betters. My 
acquaintance with the French language is very imper- 
fect, I having never studied it anywhere but in Paris, 
which is awkward, as B. F. devotes himself to it with 
the peculiar advantage of an Alsacian teacher. The 
boy, I think, is doing well, between us, notwithstand- 
ing. The following is an tmcorrected French exer- 
cise, written by this young gentleman. His mother 
thinks it very creditable to his abilities ; though, being 
unacquainted with the French language, her judgment 
cannot be considered final. 

Le Rat des Salons a Lecture. 

Ce rat ci est un animal fort singulier. II a deux 
pattes de derriere sur lesquelles il marche, et deux 
pattes de devant dont il fait usage pour tenir les 
journaux. Cet animal a la peau noire pour le plupart, 
et porte un cercle blanchatre autour de son cou. On 
le trouve tous les jours aux dits salons, ou il demeure, 
digere, s'il y a de quoi dans son interieur, respire, 
tousse, eternue, dort, et ronfle quelquefois, ayant tou- 
jours le semblant de lire. On ne sait pas s'il a une 
autre gite que cela. II a Pair d'une bete tres stupide, 
mais il est d'une sagacite et d'une vitesse extraordi- 
naire quand il s^git de saisir un journal nouveau. On 
ne sait pas pourquoi il lit, parcequ'il ne parait pas 
avoir des idees. II vocalise rarement, mais en re- 
vanche, il fait des bruits nasaux divers. II porte un 



56 THE AUTOCRAT 

crayon dans une de ses poches pectorales, avec lequel 
il fait des marques sur les bords des journaux et des 
livres, semblable aux suivans : ! ! ! — Bah ! Pooh ! II 
ne faut pas cependant les prendre pour -des signes 
d'intelligence. II ne vole pas, ordinairement ; il fait 
rarement meme des echanges de parapluie, et jamais 
de chapeau, parceque son chapeau a toujours un car- 
actere specifique. On ne sait pas au juste ce dont il 
se nourrit. Feu Cuvier etait d'avis que c'etait de 
Todeur du cuir des reliures ; ce qu'on dit d'etre une 
nourriture animale fort saine, et peu chere. II vit 
bien longtems. Enfin il meure, en laissant a. ses 
heritiers une carte du Salon a. Lecture ou il avait 
existe pendant sa vie. On pretend qu'il revient toutes 
les nuits, apres la mort, visiter le Salon. On peut le 
voir, dit on, a minuit, dans sa place habituelle, tenant 
le journal du soir, et ayant a sa main un crayon de 
charbon. Le lendemain on trouve des caracteres 
inconnus sur les bords du journal. Ce qui prouve 
que le spiritualisme est vrai, et que Messieurs les 
Professeurs de Cambridge sont des imbeciles qui ne 
savent rien du tout, du tout. 

I think this exercise, which I have not corrected, 
or allowed to be touched in any way, is not discredit- 
able to B. F. You observe that he is acquiring a 
knowledge of zoology at the same time that he is 
learning French. Fathers of families in moderate 
circumstances will find it profitable to their children, 
and an economical mode of instruction, to set them 
to revising and amending this boy's exercise. The 
passage was originally taken from the " Histoire 
Naturelle des Betes Ruminans et Rongeurs, Bipedes 
et Autres," lately published in Paris. This was trans- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 57 

lated into English and published in London. It was 
republished at Great Pedlington, with notes and 
additions by the American editor. The notes con- 
sist of an interrogation-mark on page 53d, and a 
reference (p. 127th) to another book "edited" by the 
same hand. The additions consist of the editor's 
name on the title-page and back, with a complete 
and authentic list of said editor's honorary titles in 
the first of these localities. Our boy translated the 
translation back into French. This may be compared 
with the original, to be found on Shelf 13, Division 
X, of the Public Library of this metropolis.] 

— Some of you boarders ask me from time to time 
why I don't write a story, or a novel, or something 
of that kind. Instead of answering each one of you 
separately, I will thank you to step up into the whole- 
sale department for a few moments, where I deal in 
answers by the piece and by the bale. 

That every articulately-speaking human being has 
in him stuff for one novel in three volumes duodecimo 
has long been with me a cherished belief. It has 
been maintained, on the other hand, that many per- 
sons cannot write more than one novel, — that all 
after that are likely to be failures. — Life is so much 
more tremendous a thing in its heights and depths 
than any transcript of it can be, that all records of 
human experience are as so many bound herbaria to 
the innumerable glowing, glistening, rustling, breath- 
ing, fragrance-laden, poison-sucking, life-giving, death- 
distilling leaves and flowers of the forest and the 
prairies. All we can do with books of human experi- 
ence is to make them alive again with something 
borrowed from our own lives. We can make a book 
alive for us just in proportion to its resemblance in 



58 THE AUTOCRAT 

essence or in form to our own experience. Now an 
author's first novel is naturally drawn, to a great 
extent, from his personal experiences ; that is, is a 
literal copy of nature under various slight disguises. 
But the moment the author gets out of his personality, 
he must have the creative power, as well as the nar- 
rative art and the sentiment, in order to tell a living 
story ; and this is rare. 

Besides, there is great danger that a man's first 
life-story shall clean him out, so to speak, of his best 
thoughts. Most lives, though their stream is loaded 
with sand and turbid with alluvial waste, drop a few 
golden grains of wisdom as they flow along. Often- 
times a single cradling gets them all, and after that 
the poor man's labor is only rewarded by mud and 
worn pebbles. All which proves that I, as an individ- 
ual of the human family, could write one novel or story 
at any rate, if I would. 

— Why don't I, then? — Well, there are several 
reasons against it. In the first place, I should tell all 
my secrets, and I maintain that verse is the proper 
medium for such revelations. Rhythm and rhyme and 
the harmonies of musical language, the play of fancy, 
the fire of imagination, the flashes of passion, so 
hide the nakedness of a heart laid open, that hardly any 
confession, transfigured in the luminous halo of poetry, 
is reproached as self-exposure. A beauty shows her- 
self under the chandeliers, protected by the glitter of 
her diamonds, with such a broad snowdrift of white 
arms and shoulders laid bare, that, were she una- 
dorned and in plain calico, she would be unendurable 
— in the opinion of the ladies. 

Again, I am terribly afraid I should show up all my 
friends. I should like to know if all story-tellers do 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 59 

not do this ? Now I am afraid all my friends would 
not bear showing up very well ; for they have an aver- 
age share of the common weakness of humanity, which 
I am pretty certain would come out. Of all that have 
told stories among us there is hardly one I can recall 
who has not drawn too faithfully some living portrait 
that might better have been spared. 

Once more, I have sometimes thought it possible I 
might be too dull to write such a story as I should 
wish to write. 

And finally, I think it very likely I shall write a 
story one of these days. Don't be surprised at any 
time, if you see me coming out with " The School- 
mistress,' 1 or "The Old Gentleman Opposite.' 1 \_Our 
schoolmistress and our old gentleman that sits oppo- 
site had left the table before I said this.] I want my 
glory for writing the same discounted now, on the 
spot, if you please. I will write when I get ready. 
How many people live on the reputation of the repu- 
tation they might have made ! 

— I saw you smiled when I spoke about the possi- 
bility of my being too dull to write a good story. I 
don 1 t pretend to know what you meant by it, but I 
take occasion to make a remark which may hereafter 
prove of value to some among you. — When one of us 
who has been led by native vanity or senseless flattery 
to think himself or herself possessed of talent arrives 
at the full and final conclusion that he or she is really 
dull, it is one of the most tranquillizing and blessed 
convictions that can enter a mortal's mind. All our 
failures, our short-comings, our strange disappoint- 
ments in the effect of our efforts are lifted from our 
bruised shoulders, and fall, like Christian's pack, at 
the feet of that Omnipotence which has seen fit to 



60 THE AUTOCRAT 

deny us the pleasant gift of high intelligence, — with 
which one look may overflow us in some wider sphere 
of being. 

— How sweetly and honestly one said to me the 
other day, " I hate books ! " A gentleman, — singu- 
larly free from affectations, — not learned, of course, 
but of perfect breeding, which is often so much better 
than learning, — by no means dull, in the sense of 
knowledge of the world and society, but certainly not 
clever either in the arts or sciences, — his company is 
pleasing to all who know him. I did not recognize 
in him inferiority of literary taste half so distinctly as 
I did simplicity of character and fearless acknowledg- 
ment of his inaptitude for scholarship. In fact, I 
think there are a great many gentlemen and others, 
who read with a mark to keep their place, that really 
" hate books," but never had the wit to find it out, or 
the manliness to own it. [Entre nous, I always read 
with a mark.] 

We get into a way of thinking as if what we call an 
" intellectual man " was, as a matter of course, made 
up of nine-tenths, or thereabouts, of book-learning, 
and one-tenth himself. But even if he is actually so 
compounded, he need not read much. Society is a 
strong solution of books. It draws the virtue out of 
what is best worth reading, as hot water draws the 
strength of tea-leaves. If I were a prince, I would 
hire or buy a private literary tea-pot, in which I would 
steep all the leaves of new books that promised well. 
The infusion would do for me without the vegetable 
fibre. You understand me; I would have a person 
whose sole business should be to read day and night, 
and talk to me whenever I wanted him to. I know 
the man I would have : a quick-witted, out-spoken^ 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 6 1 

incisive fellow ; knows history, or at any rate has a 
shelf full of books about it, which he can use handily, 
and the same of all useful arts and sciences ; knows 
all the common plots of plays and novels, and the 
stock company of characters that are continually com- 
ing on in new costume; can give you a criticism of 
an octavo in an epithet and a wink, and you can de- 
pend on it ; cares for nobody except for the virtue 
there is in what he says ; delights in taking off big 
wigs and professional gowns, and in the disembalm- 
ing and unbandaging of all literary mummies. Yet 
he is as tender and reverential to all that bears the 
mark of genius, — that is, of a new influx of truth or 
beauty, — as a nun over her missal. In short, he is 
one of those men that know everything except how 
to make a living. Him would I keep on the square 
next my own royal compartment on lifers chessboard. 
To him I would push up another pawn, in the shape 
of a comely and wise young woman, whom he would 
of course take — to wife. For all contingencies I 
would liberally provide. In a word, I would, in the 
plebeian, but expressive phrase, " put him through " 
all the material part of life ; see him sheltered, warmed, 
fed, button-mended, and all that, just to be able to lay 
on his talk when I liked, — with the privilege of shut- 
ting it off at will. 

A Club is the next best thing to this, strung like 
a harp, with about a dozen ringing intelligences, each 
answering to some chord of the macrocosm. They 
do well to dine together once in a while. A dinner- 
party made up of such elements is the last triumph of 
civilization over barbarism. Nature and art combine 
to charm the senses ; the equatorial zone of the system 
is soothed by well-studied artifices ; the faculties are 



62 THE AUTOCRAT 

off duty, and fall into their natural attitudes ; you see 
wisdom in slippers and science in a short jacket. 

The whole force of conversation depends on how 
much you can take for granted. Vulgar chess-players 
have to play their game out ; nothing short of the 
brutality of an actual checkmate satisfies their dull 
apprehensions. But look at two masters of that noble 
game ! White stands well enough, so far as you can 
see ; but Red says, Mate in six moves ; — White 
looks, — nods ; — the game is over. Just so in talk- 
ing with first-rate men ; especially when they are 
good-natured and expansive, as they are apt to be at 
table. That blessed clairvoyance which sees into 
things without opening them, — that glorious license, 
which, having shut the door and driven the reporter 
from its key-hole, calls upon Truth, majestic virgin ! 
to get off from her pedestal and drop her academic 
poses, and take a festive garland and the vacant place 
on the medius lectus, — that carnival-shower of ques- 
tions and replies and comments, large axioms bowled 
over the mahogany like bomb-shells from professional 
mortars, and explosive wit dropping its trains of many- 
colored fire, and the mischief-making rain of bon-bons 
pelting everybody that shows himself, — the picture of a 
truly intellectual banquet is one which the old Divinities 
might well have attempted to reproduce in their — 

— " Oh, oli, oh ! " cried the young fellow whom 
they call John, — " that is from one of your lectures ! " 

I know it, I replied, — I concede it, I confess it, I 
proclaim it. 

" The trail of the serpent is over them all 1 " 

All lecturers, all professors, all schoolmasters, have 
ruts and grooves in their minds into which their con- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 63 

versation is perpetually sliding. Did you never, in 
riding through the woods of a still June evening, 
suddenly feel that you had passed into a warm stra- 
tum of air, and in a minute or two strike the chill 
layer of atmosphere beyond? Did you never, in 
cleaving the green waters of the Back Bay, — where 
the Provincial blue-noses are in the habit of beating 
the " Metropolitan " boat-clubs, — find yourself in a 
tepid streak, a narrow, local gulf-stream, a gratuitous 
warm-bath a little underdone, through which your 
glistening shoulders soon flashed, to bring you back 
to the cold realities of full-sea temperature? Just so, 
in talking with any of the characters above referred 
to, one not unfrequently finds a sudden change in the 
style of the conversation. The lack-lustre eye, ray- 
less as a Beacon-Street door-plate in August, all at 
once fills with light ; the face flings itself wide open 
like the church-portals when the bride and bride- 
groom enter ; the little man grows in stature before 
your eyes, like the small prisoner with hair on end, 
beloved yet dreaded of early childhood ; you were 
talking with a dwarf and an imbecile, — you have 
a giant and a trum pet-to ngued angel before you ! — 
Nothing but a streak out of a fifty-dollar lecture. — 
As when, at some unlooked-for moment, the mighty 
fountain-column springs into the air before the aston- 
ished passer-by, — silver-footed, diamond-crowned, 
rainbow-scarfed, — from the bosom of that fair sheet, 
sacred to the hymns of quiet batrachians at home, 
and the epigrams of a less amiable and less elevated 
order of reptilia in other latitudes. 

— Who was that person that was so abused some 
time since for saying that in the conflict of two races 
our sympathies naturally go with the higher? No 



64 THE AUTOCRAT 

matter who he was. Now look at what is going on in 
India, — a white, superior " Caucasian " race, against 
a dark-skinned, inferior, but still " Caucasian" race, — 
and where are English and American sympathies? 
We canH stop to settle all the doubtful questions ; all 
we know is that the brute nature is sure to come out 
most strongly in the lower race, and it is the general 
law that the human side of humanity should treat the 
brutal side as it does the same nature in the inferior 
animals, — tame it or crush it. The India mail brings 
stories of women and children outraged and murdered ; 
the royal stronghold is in the hands of the babe-killers. 
England takes dow r n the Map of the World, which she 
has girdled with empire, and makes a correction thus : 
Delhi -. Dele. The civilized world says, Amen. 

— Do not think, because I talk to you of many 
subjects briefly, that I should not find it much lazier 
work to take each one of them and dilute it down 
to an essay. Borrow some of my old college themes 
and water my remarks to suit yourselves, as the 
Homeric heroes did with their melas oinos, — that 
black, sweet, syrupy wine (?) which they used to alloy 
with three parts or more of the flowing stream. [Could 
it have been melas ses, as Webster and his provincials 
spell it, — or Molossa's, as dear old smattering, chat- 
tering, would-be-College-President, Cotton Mather, 
has it in the " Magnalia " ? Ponder thereon, ye small 
antiquaries who make barn-door-fowl flights of learn- 
ing in " Notes and Queries " ! — ye Historical Socie- 
ties, in one of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend 
the stream of time, while other hands tug at the 
oars ! — ye Amines of parasitical literature, who pick 
up your grains of native-grown food with a bodkin, 
having gorged upon less honest fare, until, like the 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 6$ 

great minds Goethe speaks of, you have "made a 
Golgotha ""of your pages ! — ponder thereon ! ] 

— Before you go, this morning, I want to read 
you a copy of verses. You will understand by the 
title that they are written in an imaginary character. 
I donH doubt they will fit some family-man well 
enough. I send it forth as " Oak Hall " projects a 
coat, on a priori grounds of conviction that it will suit 
somebody. There is no loftier illustration of faith 
than this. It believes that a soul has been clad in 
flesh ; that tender parents have fed and nurtured it ; 
that its mysterious compages or frame-work has sur- 
vived its myriad exposures and reached the stature of 
maturity ; that the Man, now self-determining, has 
given in his adhesion to the traditions and habits of 
the race in favor of artificial clothing ; that he will, 
having all the world to choose from, select the very 
locality where this audacious generalization has been 
acted upon. It builds a garment cut to the pattern 
of an Idea, and trusts that Nature will model a ma- 
terial shape to fit it. There is a prophecy in every 

,/ seam, and its pockets are full of inspiration. — Now 

' hear the verses. 



THE OLD MAN DREAMS. 

for one hour of youthful joy ! 
Give back my twentieth spring ! 

1 'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy 

Than reign a gray-beard king ! 

Off with the wrinkled spoils of age! 

Away with learning's crown ! 
Tear out life's wisdom-written page, 

And dash its trophies down ! 



66 THE AUTOCRAT 



One moment let my life-blood stream 
From boyhood's fount of flame ! 

Give me one giddy, reeling dream 
Of life all love and fame ! 

— My listening angel heard the prayer. 
And calmly smiling, said, 

" If I but touch thy silvered hair, 
Thy hasty wish hath sped. 

" But is there nothing in thy track 

To bid thee fondly stay, 
While the swift seasons hurry back 

To find the wished-for day ? " 

— Ah, truest soul of womankind ! 
Without thee, what were life ? 

One bliss I cannot leave behind: 
I '11 take — my — precious — wife ! 

— The angel took a sapphire pen 
And wrote in rainbow dew, 

" The man would be a boy again, 
And be a husband too ! " 

— " And is there nothing yet unsaid 
Before the change appears ? 

Remember, all their gifts have fled 
With those dissolving years ! " 

Why, yes ; for memory would recall 

My fond paternal joys ; 
I could not bear to leave them all ; 

I '11 take — my — girl — and — boys ! 

The smiling angel dropped his pen, — 

II Why, this will never do ; 
The man would be a boy again, 

And be a father too ! " 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 67 

And so I laughed, — my laughter woke 

The household with its noise, — 
And wrote my dream, when morning broke, 

To please the gray-haired boys. 



IV. 

[I am so well pleased with my boarding-house that 
I intend to remain there, perhaps. for years. Of course 
I shall have a great many conversations to report, 
and they will necessarily be of different tone and on 
different subjects. The talks are like the breakfasts, 
— sometimes dipped toast, and sometimes dry. You 
must take them as they come. How can I do what 
all these letters ask me to? No. i. wants serious and 
earnest thought. No. 2. (letter smells of bad cigars) 
must have more jokes ; wants me to tell a " good 
storey " which he has copied out for me. (I suppose 
two letters before the word " good " refer to some 
Doctor of Divinity who told the story.) No. 3. (in 
female hand) — more poetry. No. 4. wants something 
that would be of use to a practical man. (Prahctical 
tnahn he probably pronounces it.) No 5. (gilt-edged, 
sweet-scented) — " more sentiment," — " heart's out- 
pourings.'' 1 — 

My dear friends, one and all, I can do nothing but 
report such remarks as I happen to have made at our 
breakfast-table. Their character will depend on many 
accidents, — a good deal on the particular persons in 
the company to whom they were addressed. It so 
happens that those which follow were mainly intended 
for the divinity-student and the schoolmistress ; 
though others, whom I need not mention, saw fit to 
interfere, with more or less propriety, in the conversa- 
tion. This is one of my privileges as a talker ; and 
68 



A UTO CRA T OF THE BREAK FA S T- TABLE. 69 

of course, if I was not talking for our whole company, 
I don't expect all the readers of this periodical to be 
interested in my notes of what was said. Still, I 
think there may be a few that will rather like this vein, 
— possibly prefer it to a livelier one, — serious young 
men, and young women generally, in life's roseate 
parenthesis from years of age to inclusive. 

Another privilege of talking is to misquote. — Of 
course it wasn't Proserpina that actually cut the yel- 
low hair, — but Iris. (As I have since told you) it 
was the former lady's regular business, but Dido had 
used herself ungenteelly, and Madame d'Enfer stood 
firm on the point of etiquette. So the bathycolpian 
Here — Juno, in Latin — sent down Iris instead. But 
I was mightily pleased to see that one of the gentle- 
men that do the heavy articles for the celebrated 
" Oceanic Miscellany " misquoted Campbell's line 
without any excuse. "Waft us home the message" 
of course it ought to be. Will he be duly grateful 
for the correction ?] 

— The more we study the body and the mind, the 
more we find both to be governed, not by, but accord- 
ing to laws, such as we observe in the larger uni- 
verse. — You think you know all about walking, — 
don't you, now? Well, how do you suppose your 
lower limbs are held to your body ? They are sucked 
up by two cupping vessels, (" cotyloid " — cup-like — 
cavities,) and held there as long as you live, and 
longer. At any rate, you think you move them back- 
ward and forward at such a rate as your will determines, 
don't you ? On the contrary, they swing just as any 
other pendulums swing, at a fixed rate, determined by 
their length. You can alter this by muscular power, 
as you can take hold of the pendulum of a clock and 



JO THE AUTOCRAT 

make it move faster or slower ; but your ordinary gait 
is timed by the same mechanism as the movements 
of the solar system. 

[My friend, the Professor, told me all this, referring 
me to certain German physiologists by the name of 
Weber for proof of the facts, which, however, he said 
he had often verified. I appropriated it to my own use ; 
what can one do better than this, when one has a friend 
that tells him anything worth remembering? 

The Professor seems to think that man and the 
general powers of the universe are in partnership. 
Some one was saying that it had cost nearly half a 
million to move the Leviathan only so far as they had 
got it already. — Why, — said the Professor, — they 
might have hired an earthquake for less money.] 

Just as we find a mathematical rule at the bottom 
of many of the bodily movements, just so thought 
may be supposed to have its regular cycles. Such or 
such a thought comes round periodically, in its turn. 
Accidental suggestions, however, so far interfere with 
the regular cycles, that we may find them practically 
beyond our power of recognition. Take all this for 
what it is worth, but at any rate you will agree that 
there are certain particular thoughts that do not come 
up once a day, nor once a week, but that a year 
would hardly go round without your having them 
pass through your mind. Here is one which comes 
up at intervals in this way. Some one speaks of it, 
and there is an instant and eager smile of assent in the 
listener or listeners. Yes, indeed ; they have often 
been struck by it. 

All at once a conviction flashes through us that we 
have been in the same precise circumstances as at the 
present instant, once or many times before. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. J I 

O, dear, yes! — said one of the company, — every- 
body has had that feeling. 

The landlady didn't know anything about such no- 
tions ; it was an idee in folks' heads, she expected. 

The schoolmistress said, in a hesitating sort of way, 
that she knew the feeling well, and didn't like to 
experience it ; it made her think she was a ghost, 
sometimes. 

The young fellow whom they call John said he 
knew all about it ; he had just lighted a cheroot the 
other day, when a tremendous conviction all at once 
came over him that he had done just that same thing 
ever so many times before. I looked severely at him, 
and his countenance immediately fell — on the side 
toward me ; I cannot answer for the other, for he can 
wink and laugh with either half of his face without 
the other half's knowing it. 

— I have noticed — I went on to say — the following 
circumstances connected with these sudden impres- 
sions. First, that the condition which seems to be 
the duplicate of a former one is often very trivial, — 
one that might have presented itself a hundred times. 
Secondly, that the impression is very evanescent, and 
that it is rarely, if ever, recalled by any voluntary 
effort, at least after any time has elapsed. Thirdly, 
that there is a disinclination to record the circum- 
stances, and a sense of incapacity to reproduce the 
state of mind in words. Fourthly, I have often felt 
that the duplicate condition had not only occurred 
once before, but that it was familiar and, as it seemed, 
habitual. Lastly, I have had the same convictions in 
my dreams. 

How do I account for it? — Why, there are several 
ways that I can mention, and you may take your 



72 THE AUTOCRAT 

choice. The first is that which the young lady hinted 
at; — that these flashes are sudden recollections of 
a previous existence. I don't believe that ; for I 
remember a poor student I used to know told me he 
had such a conviction one day when he was black- 
ing his boots, and I can't think he had ever lived in 
another world where they use Day and Martin. 

Some think that Dr. Wigan's doctrine of the brain's 
being a double organ, its hemispheres working to- 
gether like the two eyes, accounts for it. One of the 
hemispheres hangs fire, they suppose, and the small 
interval between the perceptions of the nimble and 
the sluggish half seems an indefinitely long period, 
and therefore the second perception appears to be the 
copy of another, ever so old. But even allowing the 
centre of perception to be double, I can see no good 
reason for supposing this indefinite lengthening of the 
time, nor any analogy that bears it out. It seems to 
me most likely that the coincidence of circumstances is 
very partial, but that we take this partial resemblance 
for identity, as we occasionally do resemblances of 
persons. A momentary posture of circumstances is 
so far like some preceding one that we accept it as 
exactly the same, just as we accost a stranger 
occasionally, mistaking him for a friend. The 
apparent similarity may be owing perhaps, quite as 
much to the mental state at the time, as to the out- 
ward circumstances. 

— Here is another of these curiously recurring 
remarks. I have said it, and heard it many times, 
and occasionally met with something like it in books, 
— somewhere in Bulwer's novels, I think, and in one 
of the works of Mr. Olmsted, I know. 

Memory ', imagination, old sentiments and associa- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 73 

tions, are more readily reached through the sense of 
smell tfyan by almost any other channel. 

Of course the particular odors which act upon each 
person's susceptibilities differ. — O, yes ! I will tell 
you some of mine. The smell of phosphorus is one 
of them. During a year or two of adolescence I used 
to be dabbling in chemistry a good deal, and as about 
that time I had my little aspirations and passions like 
another, some of these things got mixed up with each 
other : orange-colored fumes of nitrous acid, and 
visions as bright and transient : reddening litmus- 
paper, and blushing cheeks ; — eheu ! 

" Soles occidere et redire possunt," 

but there is no reagent that will redden the faded 
roses of eighteen hundred and — spare them ! But, 
as I was saying, phosphorus fires this train of associa- 
tions in an instant ; its luminous vapors with their 
penetrating odor throw me into a trance ; it comes 
to me in a double sense " trailing clouds of glory." 
Only the confounded Vienna matches, ohne phosphor- 
geruch, have worn my sensibilities a little. 

Then there is the marigold. When I was of small- 
est dimensions, and wont to ride impacted between 
the knees of fond parental pair, we would sometimes 
cross the bridge to the next village-town and stop 
opposite a low, brown, "gambrel-roofed" cottage. 
Out of it would come one Sally, sister of its swarthy 
tenant, swarthy herself, shady-lipped, sad-voiced, and, 
bending over her flower-bed, would gather a " posy," 
as she called it, for the little boy. Sally lies in the 
churchyard with a slab of blue slate at her head, lichen- 
crusted, and leaning a little within the last few years. 
Cottage, garden-beds, posies, grenadier-like rows of 



74 THE AUTOCRAT 

seedling onions, — stateliest of vegetables, — all are 
gone, but the breath of a marigold brings them all 
back to me. 

Perhaps the herb everlasting, the fragrant immor- 
telle of our autumn fields, has the most suggestive 
odor to me of all those that set me dreaming. I can 
hardly describe the strange thoughts and emotions 
that come to me as I inhale the aroma of its pale, 
dry, rustling flowers. A something it has of sepul- 
chral spicery, as if it had been brought from the core 
of some great pyramid, where it had lain on the 
breast of a mummied Pharaoh. Something, too, of 
immortality in the sad, faint sweetness lingering so 
long in its lifeless petals. Yet this does not tell why 
it fills my eyes with tears and carries me in blissful 
thought to the banks of asphodel that border the 
River of Life. 

— I should not have talked so much about these 
personal susceptibilities, if I had not a remark to 
make about them which I believe is a new one. It is 
this. There may be a physical reason for the strange 
connection between the sense of smell and the mind. 
The olfactory nerve — so my friend, the Professor, 
tells me — is the only one directly connected with the 
hemispheres of the brain, the parts in which, as we 
have every reason to believe, the intellectual processes 
are performed. To speak more truly, the olfactory 
" nerve " is not a nerve at all, he says, but a part of 
the brain, in intimate connection with its anterior 
lobes. Whether this anatomical arrangement is at 
the bottom of the facts I have mentioned, I will not 
decide, but it is curious enough to be worth remem- 
bering. Contrast the sense of taste, as a source of 
suggestive impressions, with that of smell. Now the 



OF THE BREAK FA S T- TA BLE. J 5 

Professor assures me that you will find the nerve of 
taste has no immediate connection with the brain 
proper, but only with the prolongation of the spinal 
cord. 

[The old gentleman opposite did not pay much 
attention, I think, to this hypothesis of mine. But 
while I was speaking about the sense of smell he 
nestled about in his seat and presently succeeded 
in getting out a large red bandanna handkerchief. 
Then he lurched a little to the other side, and after 
much tribulation at last extricated an ample round 
snuff-box. I looked as he opened it and felt for the 
wonted pugil. Moist rappee, and a tonka-bean lying 
therein. I made the manual sign understood of all 
mankind that use the precious dust, and presently my 
brain, too, responded to the long unused stimulus. 
— O boys, — that were, — actual papas and possible 
grandpapas, — some of you with crowns like billiard- 
balls, — some in locks of sable silvered, and some of 
silver sabled, — do you remember, as you doze over 
this, those after-dinners at the Trois Freres, when 
the Scotch-plaided snuff-box went round, and the dry 
Lundy-Foot tickled its way along into our happy 
sensoria ? Then it was that the Chambertin or the 
Clos Vougeot came in, slumbering in its straw cradle. 
And one among you, — do you remember how he 
would have a bit of ice always in his Burgundy, and 
sit tinkling it against the sides of the bubble-like 
glass,/saying that he was hearing the cow-bells as he 
used to hear them, when the deep-breathing kine 
came home at twilight from the huckleberry pasture, in 
the old home a thousand leagues towards the sunset?]"! 

Ah me ! what strains and strophes of unwritten 
verse pulsate through my soul when I open a certain 



j6 THE AUTOCRAT 

closet in trie ancient house where I was born ! \ On 
its shelves used to lie bundles of sweet-marjoram and 
pennyroyal and lavender and mint and catnip ; there 
apples were stored until their seeds should grow black, 
which happy period there were sharp little milk-teeth 
always ready to anticipate ; there peaches lay in the 
dark, thinking of the sunshine they had lost, until, 
like the hearts of saints that dream of heaven in their 
sorrow, they grew fragrant as the breath of angels. 
The odorous echo of a score of dead summers lingers 
yet in those dim recesses. 

— Do I remember Byron's line about "striking the 
electric chain "? — To be sure I do. I sometimes 
think the less the hint that stirs the automatic ma- 
chinery of association, the more easily this moves us. 
What can be more trivial than that old story of 
opening the folio Shakspeare that used to lie in some 
ancient English hall and finding the flakes of Christ- 
mas pastry between its leaves, shut up in them per- 
haps a hundred years ago ? And, lo ! as one looks 
on these poor relics of a bygone generation, the uni- 
verse changes in the twinkling of an eye ; old George 
the Second is back again, and the elder Pitt is coming 
into power, and General Wolfe is a fine, promising 
young man, and over the Channel they are pulling 
the Sieur Damiens to pieces with wild horses, and 
across the Atlantic the Indians are tomahawking 
Hirams and Jonathans and Jonases at Fort William 
Henry ; all the dead people who have been in the 
dust so long — even to the stout-armed cook that 
made the pastry — are alive again; the planet un- 
winds a hundred of its luminous coils, and the pre- 
cession of the equinoxes is retraced on the dial of 
heaven ! And all this for a bit of pie-crust ! 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 77 

— I will thank you for that pie, — said the pro- 
voking young fellow whom I have named repeatedly. 
He looked at it for a moment, and put his hands to 
his eyes as if moved. — I was thinking, — he said in- 
distinctly — 

— How ? What is 't ? — said our landlady. 

— I was thinking — said he — who was king of 
England when this old pie was baked, — and it made 
me feel bad to think how long he must have been 
dead. 

[Our landlady is a decent body, poor, and a widow, 
of course ; cela va sans dire. She told me her story 
once ; it was as if a grain of corn that had been 
ground and bolted had tried to individualize itself by 
a special narrative. There was the wooing and the 
wedding, — the start in life, — the disappointment, — 
the children she had buried, — the struggle against 
fate, — the dismantling of life, first of its small lux- 
uries, and then of its comforts, — the broken spirits, — 
the altered character of the one on whom she leaned, 
— and at last the death that came and drew the black 
curtain between her and all her earthly hopes. 

I never laughed at my landlady after she had told 
me her story, but I often cried, — not those pattering 
tears that run off the eaves upon our neighbors' 
grounds, the stillicidium of self-conscious sentiment, 
but those which steal noiselessly through their con- 
duits until they reach the cisterns lying round about 
the heart ; those tears that we weep inwardly with 
unchanging features ; — such I did shed for her often 
when the imps of the boarding-house Inferno tugged 
at her soul with their red-hot pincers.] 

Young man, — I said, — the pasty you speak lightly 
of is not old, but courtesy to those who labor to serve* 



78 THE AUTOCRAT 

us, especially if they are of the weaker sex, is very old, 
' and yet well worth retaining. May I recommend to 
you the following caution, as a guide, whenever you 
are dealing with a woman, or an artist, or a poet ; — if 
you are handling an editor or politician, it is super- 
fluous advice. I take it from the back of one of those 
little French toys which contain pasteboard figures 
moved by a small running stream of fine sand ; Ben- 
jamin Franklin will translate it for you : " QuoiqtSelle 
soit tres solidement ?nontee ilfaut ne pas brutaliser la 
machine." — I will thank you for the pie, if you please. 
[I took more of it than was good for me, — as much 
as 85 , I should think, — and had an indigestion in 
consequence. While I was suffering from it, I wrote 
some sadly desponding poems, and a theological essay 
which took a very melancholy view of creation . When 
I got better I labelled them all " Pie-crust," and laid 
them by as scarecrows and solemn warnings. I have 
a number of books on my shelves that I should like to 
label with some such title ; but, as they have great 
names on their title-pages, — Doctors of Divinity, 
some of them, — it wouldn't do.] 

— My friend, the Professor, whom I have mentioned 
to you once or twice, told me yesterday that somebody 
had been abusing him in some of the journals of his 
calling. I told him that I didn't doubt he deserved it ; 
that I hoped he did deserve a little abuse occasionally, 
and would for a number of years to come ; that no- 
body could do anything to make his neighbors wiser 
or better without being liable to abuse for it ; espe- 
cially that people hated to have their little mistakes 
made fun of, and perhaps he had been doing some- 
thing of the kind. — The Professor smiled. — Now, 
said I, hear what I am going to say. It will not take 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 79 

many years to bring you to the period of life when 
men, at least the majority of writing and talking men, 
do nothing but praise. Men, like peaches and pears, 
grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay. 
I don't know what it is, — whether a spontaneous 
change, mental or bodily, or whether it is thorough 
experience of the thanklessness of critical honesty, — 
but it is a fact, that most writers, except sour and un- 
successful ones, get tired of finding fault at about the 
time when they are beginning to grow old. As a 
general thing, I would not give a great deal for the 
fair words of a critic, if he is himself an author, over 
fifty years of age. At thirty we are all trying to cut 
our names in big letters upon the walls of this tene- 
ment of life ; twenty years later we have carved it, or 
shut up our jack-knives. Then we are ready to help 
others, and care less to hinder any, because nobody's 
elbows are in our way. So I am glad you have a 
little life left ; you will be saccharine enough in a few 
years. 

— Some of the softening effects of advancing age 
have struck me very much in what I have heard or 
seen here and elsewhere. I just now spoke of the 
sweetening process that authors undergo. Do you 
know that in the gradual passage from maturity to 
helplessness the harshest characters sometimes have 
a period in which they are gentle and placid as young 
children? I have heard it said, but I cannot be 
sponsor for its truth, that the famous chieftain, 
Lochiel, was rocked in a cradle like a baby, in his 
old age. An old man, whose studies had been of the 
severest scholastic kind, used to love to hear little 
nursery-stories read over and over to him. One who 
saw the Duke of Wellington in his last years describes 



80 THE AUTOCRAT 

him as very gentle in his aspect and demeanor. I 
remember a person of singularly stern and lofty bear- 
ing who became remarkably gracious and easy in all 
his ways in the later period of his life. 

And that leads me to say that men often remind 
me of pears in their way of coming to maturity. 
Some are ripe at twenty, like human Jargonelles, and 
must be made the most of, for their day is soon over. 
Some come into their perfect condition late, like the 
autumn kinds, and they last better than the summer 
fruit. And some, that, like the Winter-Nelis, have 
been hard and uninviting until all the rest have 
had their season, get their glow and perfume long 
after the frost and snow have done their worst with 
the orchards. Beware of rash criticisms ; the rough 
and stringent fruit you condemn may be an autumn 
or a winter pear, and that which you picked up be- 
neath the same bough in August may have been only 
its worm-eaten windfalls. Milton was a Saint-Germain 
with a graft of the roseate Early-Catherine. Rich, 
juicy, lively, fragrant, russet skinned old Chaucer was 
an Easter-Beurre ; the buds of a new summer were 
swelling when he ripened. 

— There is no power I envy so much — said the 
divinity-student — as that of seeing analogies and 
making comparisons. I don't understand how it is 
that some minds are continually coupling thoughts 
or objects that seem not in the least related to each 
other, until all at once they are put in a certain 
light, and you wonder that you did not always see 
that they were as like as a pair of twins. It appears 
to me a sort of miraculous gift. 

[He is rather a nice young man, and I think has 
an appreciation of the higher mental qualities re- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 8 1 

markable for one of his years and training. I try 
his head occasionally as housewives try eggs, — give 
it an intellectual shake and hold it up to the light, so 
to speak, to see if it has life in it, actual or potential, 
or only contains lifeless albumen. 

You call it miraculous, — I replied, — tossing the 
expression with my facial eminence, a little smartly, I 
fear. — Two men are walking by the polyphlcesbcean 
ocean, one of them having a small tin cup with which 
he can scoop up a gill of sea-water when he will, and 
the other nothing but his hands, which will hardly 
hold water at all, — and you call the tin cup a mirac- 
ulous possession! It is the ocean that is the miracle, 
my infant apostle ! Nothing is clearer than that all 
things are in all things, and that just according to 
the intensity and extension of our mental being we 
shall see the many in the one and the one in the 
many. Did Sir Isaac think what he was saying 
when he made his speech about the ocean, — the child 
and the pebbles, you know? Did he mean to speak 
slightingly of a pebble? Of a spherical solid which 
stood sentinel over its compartment of space before 
the stone that became the pyramids had grown solid, 
and has watched it until now ! A body which knows 
all the currents of force that traverse the globe ; 
which holds by invisible threads to the ring of Saturn 
and the belt of Orion! A body from the contem- 
plation of which an archangel could infer the entire 
inorganic universe as the simplest of corollaries ! A 
throne of the all-pervading Deity, who has guided 
its every atom since the rosary of heaven was strung 
with beaded stars ! 

So, — to return to our walk by the ocean, — if all 
that poetry has dreamed, all that insanity has raved, 



82 THE AUTOCRAT 

all that maddening narcotics have driven through the 
brains of men, or smothered passion nursed in the 
fancies of women, — if the dreams of colleges and 
convents and boarding-schools, — if every human feel- 
ing that sighs, or smiles, or curses, or shrieks, or 
groans, should bring all their innumerable images, 
such as come with every hurried heart-beat, — the 
epic which held them all, though its letters filled the 
zodiac, would be but a cupful from the infinite ocean 
of similitudes and analogies that rolls through the 
universe. 

[The divinity-student honored himself by the way 
in which he received this. He did not swallow it at 
once, neither did he reject it ; but he took it as a 
pickerel takes the bait, and carried it off with him to 
his hole (in the fourth story) to deal with at his 
leisure.] 

— Here is another remark made for his especial 
benefit. — There is a natural tendency in many per- 
sons to run their adjectives together in triads, as I 
have heard them called, — thus : He was honorable, 
courteous, and brave ; she was graceful, pleasing, 
and virtuous. Dr. Johnson is famous for this; I 
think it was Bulwer who said you could separate a 
paper in the a Rambler " into three distinct essays. 
Many of our writers show the same tendency, — my 
friend, the Professor, especially. Some think it is in 
humble imitation of Johnson, — some that it is for the 
sake of the stately sound only. I don't think they 
get to the bottom of it. It is, I suspect, an instinctive 
and involuntary effort of the mind to present a thought 
or image with the three dimensions that belong to 
every solid, — an unconscious handling of an idea as 
if it had length, breadth, and thickness. It is a great 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 83 

deal easier to say this than to prove it, and a great 
deal easier to dispute it than to disprove it. But mind 
this : the more we observe and study, the wider we 
find the range of the automatic and instinctive prin- 
ciples in body, mind, and morals, and the narrower 
the limits of the self-determining conscious move- 
ment. 

— I have often seen piano-forte players and singers 
make such strange motions over their instruments or 
song-books that I wanted to laugh at them. " Where 
did our friends pick up all these fine ecstatic airs ? " 
I would say to myself. Then I would remember My 
Lady in "Marriage a. la Mode," and amuse myself 
with thinking how affectation was the same thing in 
Hogarth's time and in our own. But one day I 
bought me a Canary-bird and hung him up in a cage 
at my window. By-and-by he found himself at home, 
and began to pipe his little tunes ; and there he was, 
sure enough, swimming and waving about, with all the 
droopings and liftings and languishing side-turnings 
of the head that I had laughed at. And now I should 
like to ask, Who taught him all this ? — and me, through 
him, that the foolish head was not the one swinging 
itself from side to side and bowing and nodding over 
the music, but that other which was passing its shal- 
low and self-satisfied judgment on a creature made 
of finer clay than the frame which carried that same 
head upon its shoulders ? 

— Do you want an image of the human will, or the 
self-determining principle, as compared with its pre- 
arranged and impassable restrictions? A drop of 
water, imprisoned in a crystal; you may see such a 
one in any mineralogical collection. One little fluid 
particle in the crystalline prism of the solid universe ! 



84 THE AUTOCRAT 

— Weaken moral obligations? — No, not weaken, 
but define them. When I preach that sermon I 
spoke of the other day, I shall have to lay down 
some principles not fully recognized in some of your 
text-books. 

I should have to begin with one most formidable 
preliminary. You saw an article the other day in 
one of the journals, perhaps, in which some old 
Doctor or other said quietly that patients were very 
apt to be fools and cowards. But a great many of 
the clergyman's patients are not only fools and 
cowards, but also liars. 

[Immense sensation at the table. — Sudden retire- 
ment of the angular female in oxydated bombazine. 
. Movement of adhesion — as they say in the Chamber 
of Deputies — on the part of the young fellow they 
call John. Falling of the old-gentleman-opposite's 
lower jaw — (gravitation is beginning to get the 
better of him) . Our landlady to Benjamin Franklin, 
briskly, — Go to school right off, there's a good boy ! 
Schoolmistress curious, — takes a quick glance at 
divinity-student. Divinity-student slightly flushed; 
draws his shoulders back a little, as if a big false- 
hood — or truth — had hit him in the forehead. My- 
self calm.] 

— I should not make such a speech as that, you 
know, without having pretty substantial indorsers to 
fall back upon, in case my credit should be disputed. 
Will you run up stairs, Benjamin Franklin, (for B. 
F. had not gone right off, of course,) and bring down 
a small volume from the left upper corner of the 
right-hand shelves? 

[Look at the precious little black, ribbed-backed, 
clean-typed, vellum-papered 32mo. " Desiderii 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 85 

Erasmi Colloquia. Amstelodami. Typis Ludo- 
vici Elzevirii. 1650." Various names written on 
title-page. Most conspicuous this : Gul. Cookeson : 
E. Coll. Omn. Anim. 1725. Oxon. 

— O William Cookeson, of All-Souls College, Ox- 
ford, — then writing as I now write, — now in the 
dust, where I shall lie, — is this line all that remains 
to thee of earthly remembrance? Thy name is at 
least once more spoken by living men ; — is it a pleas- 
ure to thee? Thou shalt share with me my little 
draught of immortality, — its week, its month, its 
year, — whatever it may be, — and then we will go 
together into the solemn archives of Oblivion's Un- 
catalogued Library!] 

— If you think I have used .rather strong language, 
I shall have to read something to you out of the book 
of this keen and witty scholar, — the great Erasmus, — 
who "laid the egg of the Reformation which Luther 
hatched." Oh, you never read his Naufragium, or 
" Shipwreck,' 1 did you ? Of course not j for, if you 
had, I don't think you would have given me credit — 
or discredit — for entire originality in that speech of 
mine. That men are cowards in the contemplation 
of futurity he illustrates by the extraordinary antics 
of many on board the sinking vessel ; that they are 
fools, by their praying to the sea, and making prom- 
ises to bits of wood from the true cross, and all man- 
ner of similar nonsense ; that they are fools, cowards, 
and liars all at once, by this story : I will put it into 
rough English for you. — "I couldn't help laughing 
to hear one fellow bawling out, so that he might be 
sure to be heard, a promise to Saint Christopher 
of Paris — the monstrous statue in the great church 
there — that he would give him a wax taper as big 



86 THE AUTOCRAT 

as himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an ac- 
quaintance that stood near him, poking him with his 
elbow ; ' you couldn't pay for it, if you sold all your 
things at auction.' i Hold your tongue, you donkey! ' 
said the fellow, — but softly, so that Saint Christopher 
should not hear him, — ' do you think I 'm in earnest? 
If I once get my foot on dry ground, catch me giving 
him so much as a tallow candle! ' " 

Now, therefore, remembering that those who have 
been loudest in their talk about the great subject of 
which we were speaking have not necessarily been 
wise, brave, and true men, but, on the contrary, have 
very often been wanting in one or two or all of the 
qualities these words imply, I should expect to find 
a good many doctrines current in the schools which I 
should be obliged to call foolish, cowardly, and false. 

— So you would abuse other people's beliefs, Sir, 
and yet not tell us your own creed ! — said the divinity- 
student, coloring up with a spirit for which I liked 
him all the better. 

— I have a creed, — I replied ; none better, and 
none shorter. It is told in two words, — the two first 
of the Paternoster. And when I say these words I 
mean them. And when I compared the human will 
to a drop in a crystal, and said I meant to define 
moral obligations, and not weaken them, this was 
what I intended to express : that the fluent, self- 
determining power of human beings is a very strictly 
limited agency in the universe. The chief planes 
of its enclosing solid are, of course, organization, 
education, condition. Organization may reduce the 
power of the will to nothing, as in some idiots ; and 
from this zero the scale mounts upwards by slight 
gradations. Education is only second to nature. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 87 

Imagine all the infants born this year in Boston and 
Timbuctoo to change places! Condition does less, 
but " Give me neither poverty nor riches " was the 
prayer of Agur, and with good reason. If there is 
any improvement in modern theology, it is in getting 
out of the region of pure abstractions and taking 
these every-day working forces into account. The 
great theological question now heaving and throbbing 
in the minds of Christian men is this : — 

No, I wont talk about these things now. My re- 
marks might be repeated, and it would give my 
friends pain to see with what personal incivilities I 
should be visited. Besides, what business has a 
mere boarder to be talking about such things at a 
breakfast-table ? Let him make puns. To be sure, 
he was brought up among the Christian fathers, and 
learned his alphabet out of a quarto " Concilium 
Tridentinum." He has also heard many thousand 
theological lectures by men of various denominations ; 
and it is not at all to the credit of these teachers, 
if he is not fit by this time to express an opinion on 
theological matters. 

I know well enough that there are some of you 
who had a great deal rather see me stand on my head 
than use it for any purpose of thought. Does not 
my friend, the Professor, receive at least two letters 

a week, requesting him to , — 

on the strength of some youthful antic of his, which, 
no doubt, authorizes the intelligent constituency of 
autograph-hunters to address him as a harlequin ? 

— Well, I can't be savage with you for wanting to 
laugh, and I like to make you laugh, well enough, 
when I can. But then observe this : if the sense 
of the ridiculous is one side of an impressible nature, 



88 THE AUTOCRAT 

it is very well ; but if that is all there is in a man, he 
had better have been an ape at once, and so have 
stood at the head of his profession. Laughter and 
tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same ma- 
chinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the 
other water-power; that is all. I have often heard 
the Professor talk about hysterics as being Nature's 
cleverest illustration of the reciprocal convertibility 
of the two states of which these acts are the mani- 
festations ; but you may see it every day in chil- 
dren ; and if you want to choke with stifled tears at 
sight of the transition, as it shows itself in older years, 
go and see Mr. Blake play /esse Rural. 

It is a very dangerous thing for a literary man to 
indulge his love for the ridiculous. People laugh 
with him just so long as he amuses them ; but if he 
attempts to be serious, they must still have their 
laugh, and so they, laugh at him. There is in addi- 
tion, however, a deeper reason for this than would 
at first appear. Do you know that you feel a little 
superior to every man who makes you laugh, whether 
by making faces or verses ? Are you aware that you 
have a pleasant sense of patronizing him, when you 
condescend so far as to let him turn somersets, literal 
or literary, for your royal delight? Now if a man can 
only be allowed to stand on a dais, or raised plat- 
form, and look down on his neighbor who is exert- 
ing his talent for him, oh, it is all right! — first-rate 
performance! — and all the rest of the fine phrases. 
But if all at once the performer asks the gentleman 
to come upon the floor, and, stepping upon the plat- 
form, begins to talk down at him, — ah, that wasn't 
in the programme! 

I have never forgotten what happened when Sydney 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 89 

Smith — who, as everybody knows, was an exceed- 
ingly sensible man, and a gentleman, every inch of 
him — ventured to preach a sermon on the Duties 
of Royalty. The " Quarterly," " so savage and tar- 
tarly," came down upon him in the most contemptu- 
ous style, as "a joker of jokes," a "diner-out of the 
first water," in one of his own phrases ; sneering at 
him, insulting him, as nothing but a toady of a court, 
sneaking behind the anonymous, would ever have 
been mean enough to do to a man of his position and 
genius, or to any decent person even. — If I were 
giving advice to a young fellow of talent, with two 
or three facets to his mind, I would tell him by all 
means to keep his wit in the background until after 
he had made a reputation by his more solid qualities. 
And so to an actor: Hamlet first, and Bob Logic 
afterwards, if you like ; but don't think, as they say 
poor Liston used to, that people will be ready to allow 
that you can do anything great with Macbeth' 1 s dag- 
ger after flourishing about with Paul Pry^s umbrella. 
Do you know, too, that the majority of men look upon 
all who challenge their attention, — for a while, at 
least, — as beggars, and nuisances ? They always try 
to get off as cheaply as they can ; and the cheapest 
of all things they can give a literary man — pardon 
the forlorn pleasantry! — is the ////z/zy-bone. That 
is all very well so far as it goes, but satisfies no man, 
and makes a good many angry, as I told you on a 
former occasion. 

— Oh, indeed, no! — I am not ashamed to make 
you laugh, occasionally. I think I could read you 
something I have in my desk which would probably 
make you smile. Perhaps I will read it one of these 
days, if you are patient with me when I am senti- 



90 THE AUTOCRAT 

mental and reflective ; not just now. The ludicrous 
has its place in the universe ; it is not a human in- 
vention, but one of the Divine ideas, illustrated in 
the practical jokes of kittens and monkeys long be- 
fore Aristophanes or Shakspeare. How curious it is 
that we always consider solemnity and the absence 
of all gay surprises and encounter of wits as essential 
to the idea of the future life of those whom we thus 
deprive of half their faculties and then call blessed: 
There are not a few who, even in this life, seem to 
be preparing themselves for that smileless eternity 
to which they look forward, by banishing all gayety 
from their hearts and all joyousness from their coun- 
tenances. I meet one such in the street not unfre- 
quently, a person of intelligence and education, but 
who gives me (and all that he passes) such a ray- 
less and chilling look of recognition, — something as 
if he were one of Heaven's assessors, come down to 
" doom " every acquaintance he met, — that I have 
sometimes begun to sneeze on the spot, and gone 
home with a violent cold, dating from that instant. 
I don't doubt he would cut his kitten's tail off, if he 
caught her playing with it. Please tell me, who taught 
her to play with it ? 

No, no! — give me a chance to talk to you, my 
fellow-boarders, and you need not be afraid that I 
shall have any scruples about entertaining you, if I 
can do it, as well as giving you some of my serious 
thoughts, and perhaps my sadder fancies. I know 
nothing in English or any other literature more ad- 
mirable than that sentiment of Sir Thomas Browne 
" Every man truly lives, so long as he acts his 
nature, or some way makes good the faculties 
of himself." 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 9 1 

I find the great thing in this world is not so much 
where we stand, as in what direction we are moving : 
To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes 
with the wind and sometimes against it, — but we 
must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. There is 
one very sad thing in old friendships, to every mind 
that is really moving onward. It is this : that one 
cannot help using his early friends as the seaman 
uses the log, to mark his progress. Every now and 
then we throw an old schoolmate over the stern with 
a string of thought tied to him, and look — I am 
afraid with a kind of luxurious and sanctimonious 
compassion — to see the rate at which the string reels 
off, while he lies there bobbing up and down, poor 
fellow! and we are dashing along with the white 
foam and bright sparkle at our bows ; — the ruffled 
bosom of prosperity and progress, with a sprig of 
diamonds stuck in it ! But this is only the senti- 
mental side of the matter ; for grow we must, if we 
outgrow all that we love. 

Don't misunderstand that metaphor of heaving the 
log, I beg you. It is merely a smart way of saying 
that we cannot avoid measuring our rate of move- 
ment by those with whom we have long been in the 
habit of comparing ourselves ; and when they once 
become stationary, we can get our reckoning from 
them with painful accuracy. We see just what we 
were when they were our peers, and can strike the 
balance between that and whatever we may feel our- 
selves to be now. No doubt we may sometimes be 
mistaken. If we change our last simile to that very 
old and familiar one of a fleet leaving the harbor and 
sailing in company for some distant region, we can 
get what we want out of it. There is one of our 



92 THE AUTOCRAT 

companions ; — her streamers were torn into rags be- 
fore she had got into the open sea, then by-and-by 
her sails blew out of the ropes one after another, the 
waves swept her deck, and as night came on we left 
her a seeming wreck, as we flew under our pyramid 
of canvas. But lo! at dawn she is still in sight, — it 
may be in advance of us. Some deep ocean-current 
has been moving her on, strong, but silent, — yes, 
stronger than these noisy winds that puff our sails 
until they are swollen as the cheeks of jubilant cher- 
ubim. And when at last the black steam-tug with the 
skeleton arms, which comes out of the mist sooner or 
later and takes us all in tow, grapples her and goes 
off panting and groaning with her, it is to that har- 
bor where all wrecks are refitted, and where, alas ! we, 
towering in our pride, may never come. 

So you will not think I mean to speak lightly of old 
friendships, because we cannot help instituting com- 
parisons between our present and former selves by 
the aid of those who were what we were, but are not 
what we are. Nothing strikes one more, in the race 
of life, than to see how many give out in the first 
half of the course. "Commencement day" always 
reminds me of the start for the " Derby," when the 
beautiful high-bred three-year olds of the season are 
brought up for trial. That day is the start, and life 
is the race. Here we are at Cambridge, and a class 
is just "graduating." Poor Harry! he was to have 
been there too, but he has paid forfeit ; step out here 
into the grass back of the church ; ah ! there it is : — 

"HUNC LAPIDEM POSUERUNT 
SOCII MOZRENTES." 

But this is the start, and here they are, — coats bright 
as silk, and manes as smooth as eau lustrale can 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 93 

make them. Some of the best of the colts are 
pranced round, a few minutes each, to show their 
paces. What is that old gentleman crying about? 
and the old lady by him, and the three girls, what are 
they all covering their eyes for? Oh, that is their 
colt which has just been trotted up on the stage. 
Do they really think those little thin legs can do any- 
thing in such a slashing sweepstakes as is coming 
off in these next forty years? Oh, this terrible gift . 
of second-sight that comes to some of us when we 
begin to look through the silvered rings of the arcus 
senilis ! 

Ten years gone. First turn in the race. A few 
broken down ; two or three bolted. Several show in 
advance of the ruck. Cassock, a black colt, seems 
to be ahead of the rest ; those black colts commonly 
get the start, I have noticed, of the others, in the first 
quarter. Meteor has pulled up. 

Twenty years. Second corner turned. Cassock 
has dropped from the front, and Judex, an iron-gray, 
has the lead. But look! how they have thinned out ! 
Down flat, — five, — six, — how many ? They lie still 
enough! they will not get up again in this race, be 
very sure ! And the rest of them, what a "tailing 
off"! Anybody can see who is going to win, — 
perhaps. 

Thirty years. Third corner turned. Dives, bright 
sorrel, ridden by the fellow in a yellow jacket, begins 
to make play fast ; is getting to be the favorite with 
many. But who is that other one that has been 
lengthening his stride from the first, and now shows 
close up to the front ? Don't you remember the quiet 
brown colt Asteroid, with the star in his forehead? 
That is he ; he is one of the sort that lasts ; look out 



94 THE AUTOCRAT 

for him \ The black " colt, 1 ' as we used to call him, 
is in the background, taking it easily in a gentle trot. 
There is one they used to call the Filly, on account 
of a certain feminine air he had ; well up, you see ; 
the Filly is not to be despised, my boy! 

Forty years. More dropping off, — but places much 
as before. 

Fifty years. Race over. All that are on the course 
are coming in at a walk ; no more running. Who 
is ahead? Ahead? What! and the winning-post 
a slab of white or gray stone standing out from that 
turf where there is no more jockeying or straining for 
victory ! Well, the world marks their places in its 
betting-book ; but be sure that these matter very little, 
if they have run as well as they knew how ! 

— Did I not say to you a little while ago that the 
universe swam in an ocean of similitudes and analo- 
gies ? I will not quote Cowley, or Burns, or Words- 
worth, just now, to show you what thoughts were 
suggested to them by the simplest natural objects, 
such as a flower or a leaf; but I will read you a few 
lines, if you do not object, suggested by looking at 
a section of one of those chambered shells to which 
is given the name of Pearly Nautilus. We need not 
trouble ourselves about the distinction between this 
and the Paper Nautilus, the Argonauta of the ancients. 
The name applied to both shows that each has long 
been compared to a ship, as you may see more fully 
in Webster's Dictionary, or the " Encyclopedia, 11 to 
which he refers. If you will look into Roget's 
Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure of one 
of these shells, and a section of it. The last will 
show you the series of enlarging compartments suc- 
cessively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 95 

which is built in a widening spiral. Can you find no 
lesson in this ? 

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 

Sails the unshadowed main, — 

The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, 

And coral reefs lie bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 

Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 

And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 

Before thee lies revealed, — 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 

Year after year beheld the silent toil 

That spread his lustrous coil ; 

Still, as the spiral grew, 
He left the past year's dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 

Built up its idle door, 
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 

Child of the wandering sea, 

Cast from her lap forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 

While on mine ear it rings, 
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : — 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
As the swift seasons roll ! 
Leave thy low-vaulted past 1 



96 A UTOCRA T OF THE BREAKFAST- TABLE. 

Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! 



A Lyric conception — my friend, the Poet, said — 
hits me like a bullet in the forehead. I have often 
had the blood drop from my cheeks when it struck, 
and felt that I turned as white as death. Then comes 
a creeping as of centipedes running down the spine, 

— then a gasp and a great jump of the heart, — then 
a sudden flush and a beating in the vessels of the 
head, — then a long sigh, — and the poem is written. 

It is an impromptu, I suppose, then, if you write 
it so suddenly, — I replied. 

No, — said he, — far from it. I said written, but I 
did not say copied. Every such poem has a soul and 
a body, and it is the body of it, or the copy, that men 
read and publishers pay for. The soul of it is born 
in an instant in the poet's soul. It comes to him a 
thought, tangled in the meshes of a few sweet words, 

— words that have loved each other from the cradle 
of the language, but have never been wedded until 
now. Whether it will ever fully embody itself in a 
bridal train of a dozen stanzas or not is uncertain ; 
but it exists potentially from the instant that the 
poet turns pale with it. It is enough to stun and 
scare anybody, to have a hot thought come crashing 
into his brain, and ploughing up those parallel ruts 
where the wagon trains of common ideas were jog- 
ging along in their regular sequences of association. 
No wonder the ancients made the poetical impulse 

97 



98 THE AUTOCRAT 

wholly external. Mrjnv aciSe ©ea • Goddess, — Muse, 
— divine afflatus, — something outside always. / 
never wrote any verses worth reading. I can't. I 
am too stupid. If I ever copied any that were worth 
reading, I was only a medium. 

[I was talking all this time to our boarders, you 
understand, — telling them what this poet told me. 
The company listened rather attentively, I thought, 
considering the literary character of the remarks.] 

The old gentleman opposite all at once asked me 
if I ever read anything better than Pope's " Essay on 
Man" ? Had I ever perused McFingal ? He was 
fond of poetry when he was a boy, — his mother 
taught him to say many little pieces, — he remem- 
bered one beautiful hymn ; — and the old gentleman 
began, in a clear, loud voice, for his years, — 

" The spacious firmament on high, 
With all the blue ethereal sky, 
And spangled heavens," — 

He stopped, as if startled by our silence, and a faint 
flush ran up beneath the thin white hairs that fell 
upon his cheek. As I looked round, I was reminded 
of a show I once saw at the Museum, — the Sleeping 
Beauty, I think they called- it. The old man's sud- 
den breaking out in this way turned every face towards 
him, and each kept his posture as if changed to 
stone. Our Celtic Bridget, or Biddy, is not a fool- 
ish fat scullion to burst out crying for a sentiment. 
She is of the serviceable, red-handed, broad-and- 
high-shouldered type ; one of those imported female 
servants who are known in public by their amorphous 
style of person, their stoop forwards, and a headlong 
and as it were precipitous walk, — the waist plung- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 99 

ing downward into the rocking pelvis at every 
heavy footfall. Bridget, constituted for action, not 
for emotion, was about to deposit a plate heaped with 
something upon the table, when I saw the coarse 
arm stretched by my shoulder arrested, — motionless 
as the arm of a terra-cotta caryatid ; she couldn't set 
the plate down while the old gentleman was speak- 
ing! 

He was quite silent after this, still wearing the 
slight flush on his cheek. Don't ever think the 
poetry is dead in an old man because his forehead 
is wrinkled, or that his manhood has left him when 
his hand trembles ! If they ever were there, they 
are there still ! 

By and by we got talking again. — Does a poet 
love the verses written through him, do you think, 
Sir ? — said the divinity-student. 

So long as they are warm from his mind, carry any 
of his animal heat about them, I know he loves them, 

— I answered. When they have had time to cool, 
he is more indifferent. 

A good deal as it is with buckwheat cakes, — said 
the young fellow whom they call John. 

The last words, only, reached the ear of the eco- 
nomically organized female in black bombazine. — 
Buckwheat is skerce and high, — she remarked. 
[Must be a poor relation sponging on our landlady, 

— pays nothing, — so she must stand by the guns 
and be ready to repel boarders.] 

I liked the turn the conversation had taken, for I 
had some things I wanted to say, and so, after wait- 
ing a minute, I began again. — I don't think the 
poems I read you sometimes can be fairly appreciated, 
given to you as they are in the green state. 



100 THE AUTOCRAT 

— You don't know what I mean by the green 
state? Well, then, I will tell you. Certain things 
are good for nothing until they have been kept a 
long while ; and some are good for nothing until 
they have been long kept and used. Of the first, 
wine is the illustrious and immortal example. Of 
those which must be kept and used I will name 
three, — meerschaum pipes, violins, and poems. The 
meerschaum is but a poor affair until it has burned 
a thousand offerings to the cloud-compelling deities. 
It comes to us without complexion or flavor, — born 
of the sea-foam, like Aphrodite, but colorless as 
pallida Mors herself. The fire is lighted in its cen- 
tral shrine, and gradually the juices which the broad 
leaves of the Great Vegetable had sucked up from 
an acre and curdled into a drachm are diffused 
through its thirsting pores. First a discoloration, 
then a stain, and at last a rich, glowing, umber tint 
spreading over the whole surface. Nature true to 
her old brown autumnal hue, you see, — as true in 
the fire of the meerschaum as in the sunshine of 
October ! And then the cumulative wealth of its 
fragrant reminiscences ! he who inhales its vapors 
takes a thousand whiffs in a single breath ; and one 
cannot touch it without awakening the old joys that 
hang around it as the smell of flowers clings to the 
dresses of the daughters of the house of Farina ! 

[Don't think I use a meerschaum myself, for / do 
notj though I have owned a calumet since my child- 
hood, which from a naked Pict (of the Mohawk 
species) my grandsire won, together with a toma- 
hawk and beaded knife-sheath ; paying for the lot 
with a bullet-mark on his right cheek. On the ma- 
ternal side I inherit the loveliest silver-mounted to- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 01 

bacco-stopper you ever saw. It is a little box-wood 
Triton, carved with charming liveliness and truth ; 
I have often compared it to a figure in Raphael's 
" Triumph of Galatea. 1 ' It came to me in an ancient 
shagreen case, — how old it is I do not know, — but 
it must have been made since Sir Walter Raleigh's 
time. If you are curious, you shall see it any day. 
Neither will I pretend that I am so unused to the 
more perishable smoking contrivance, that a few whiffs 
would make me feel as if I lay in a ground-swell on 
the Bay of Biscay. I am not unacquainted with that 
fusiform, spiral-wound bundle of chopped sterns and 
miscellaneous incombustibles, the cigar ', so called, of 
the shops, — which to " draw " asks the suction-power 
of a nursling infant Hercules, and to relish, the leath- 
ery palate of an old Silenus. I do not advise you, 
young man, even if my illustration strike your fancy, 
to consecrate the flower of your life to painting the 
bowl of a pipe, for, let me assure you, the stain of a 
reverie-breeding narcotic may strike deeper than you 
think for. I have seen the green leaf of early promise 
grow brown before its time under such Nicotian regi- 
men, and thought the umbered meerschaum was dearly 
bought at the cost of a brain enfeebled and a will 
enslaved.] 

Violins, too, — the sweet old Amati! — the divine 
Stradivarius! Played on by ancient maestros until 
the bow-hand lost its power and the flying fingers 
stiffened. Bequeathed to the passionate young en- 
thusiast, who made it whisper his hidden love, and 
cry his inarticulate longings, and scream his untold 
agonies, and wail his monotonous despair. Passed 
from his dying hand to the cold virtuoso, who let it 
slumber in its case for a generation, till, when his 



102 THE AUTOCRAT 

hoard was broken up, it came forth once more and 
rode the stormy symphonies of royal orchestras, be- 
neath the rushing bow of their lord and leader. Into 
lonely prisons with improvident artists ; into convents 
from which arose, day and night, the holy hymns 
with which its tones were blended ; and back again 
to orgies in which it learned to howl and laugh as 
if a legion of devils were shut up in it ; then again 
to the gentle dilettante who calmed it down with easy 
melodies until it answered him softly as in the days 
of the old maestros. And so given into our hands, 
its pores all full of music ; stained, like the meer- 
schaum, through and through, with the concentrated 
hue and sweetness of all the harmonies which have 
kindled and faded on its strings. 

Now 1 tell you a poem must be kept and tised, 
like a meerschaum, or a violin. A poem is just as 
porous as the meerschaum; — the more porous it is, 
the better. I mean to say that a genuine poem is 
capable of absorbing an indefinite amount of the 
essence of our own humanity, — its tenderness, its 
heroism, its regrets, its aspirations, so as to be gradu- 
ally stained through with a divine secondary color 
derived from ourselves. So you see it must take 
time to bring the sentiment of a poem into harmony 
with our nature, by staining ourselves through every 
thought and image our being can penetrate. 

Then again as to the mere music of a new poem ; 
why, who can expect anything more from that than 
from the music of a violin fresh from the maker's 
hands? Now you know very well that there are no 
less than fifty-eight different pieces in a violin. These 
pieces are strangers to each other, and it takes a 
century, more or less, to make them thoroughly ac- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 103 

quainted. At last they learn to vibrate in harmony, 
and the instrument becomes an organic whole, as if 
it were a great seed-capsule which had grown from 
a garden-bed in Cremona, or elsewhere. Besides, 
the wood is juicy and full of sap for fifty years or 
so, but at the end of fifty or a hundred more gets 
tolerably dry and comparatively resonant. 

Don't you see that all this is just as true of a poem ? 
Counting each word as a piece, there are more pieces 
in an average copy of verses than in a violin. The 
poet has forced all these words together, and fastened 
them, and they don't understand it at first. But let 
the poem be repeated aloud and murmured over in the 
mind's muffled whisper often enough, and at length the 
parts become knit together in such absolute solidarity 
that you could not change a syllable without the whole 
world's crying out against you for meddling with the 
harmonious fabric. Observe, too, how the drying 
process takes place in the stuff of a poem just as in 
that of a violin. Here is a Tyrolese fiddle that is just 
coming to its hundredth birthday, — (Pedro Klauss, 
Tyroli, fecit, 1760,) — the sap is pretty well out of it. 
And here is the song of an old poet whom Neaera 
cheated : — 

" Nox erat, et coelo fulgebat Luna sereno 

Inter minora sidera, 
Cum tu magnorum numen laesura deorum 

In verba jurabas mea." 

Don't you perceive the sonorousness of these old 
dead Latin phrases ? Now I tell you that every word 
fresh from the dictionary brings with it a certain suc- 
culence ; and though I cannot expect the sheets of 
the " Pactolian," in which, as I told you, I sometimes 
print my verses, to get so dry as the crisp papyrus 



104 THE AUTOCRAT 

that held those words of Horatius Flaccus, yet you 
may be sure, that, while the sheets are damp, and 
while the lines hold their sap, you can't fairly judge 
of my performances, and that, if made of the true 
stuff, they will ring better after a while. 

[There was silence for a brief space, after my some- 
what elaborate exposition of these self-evident analo- 
gies. Presently a person turned towards me — I do 
not choose to designate the individual — and said that 
he rather expected my pieces had given pretty good 
" sahtisfahction " — I had, up to this moment, con- 
sidered this complimentary phrase as sacred to the 
use of secretaries of lyceums, and, as it has been 
usually accompanied by a small pecuniary testimonial, 
have acquired a certain relish for this moderately 
tepid and unstimulating expression of enthusiasm. 
But as a reward for gratuitous services, I confess I 
thought it a little below that blood-heat standard 
which a man's breath ought to have, whether silent, 
or vocal and articulate. I waited for a favorable 
opportunity, however, before making the remarks 
which follow.] 

— There are single expressions, as I have told you 
already, that fix a man's position for you before you 
have done shaking hands with him. Allow me to 
expand a little. There are several things, very slight 
in themselves, yet implying other things not so un- 
important. Thus, your French servant has devalise 
your premises and got caught. Excusez, says the 
sergent-de-ville, as he politely relieves him of his 
upper garments and displays his bust in the full day- 
light. Good shoulders enough, — a little marked, — 
traces of smallpox, perhaps, — but white. . . . 
Crac I from the sergent-de-ville^s broad palm on the 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 105 

white shoulder ! Now look ! Vogue la gaUrel Out 
comes the big red V — mark of the hot iron ; — he had 
blistered it out pretty nearly, — hadn't he ? — the old 
rascal VOLEUR, branded in the galleys at Marseilles ! 
[Don't ! What if he has got something like this ? 
— nobody supposes I invented such a story.] 

My man John, who used to drive two of those six 
equine females which I told you I had owned, — for, 
look you, my friends, simple though I stand here, I 
am one that has been driven in his " kerridge," — 
not using that term, as liberal shepherds do, for any 
battered old shabby-genteel go-cart which has more 
than one wheel, but meaning thereby a four-wheeled 
vehicle with a pole, — my man John, I say, was a re- 
tired soldier. He retired unostentatiously, as many 
of her Majesty's modest servants have done before 
and since. John told me, that when an officer thinks 
he recognizes one of these retiring heroes, and would 
know if he has really been in the service, that he may 
restore him, if possible, to a grateful country, he 
comes suddenly upon him, and says, sharply, " Strap! " 
If he has ever worn the shoulder-strap, he has learned 
the reprimand for its ill adjustment. The old word of 
command flashes through his muscles, and his hand 
goes up in an instant to the place where the strap 
used to be. 

[I was all the time preparing for my grand coup, 
you understand ; but I saw they were not quite ready 
for it, and so continued, — always in illustration of 
the general principle I had laid down.] 

Yes, odd things come out in ways that nobody 
thinks of. There was a legend, that, when the 
Danish pirates made descents upon the English coast, 
they caught a few Tartars occasionally, in the shape 



106 THE AUTOCRAT 

of Saxons, who would not let them go, — on the con- 
trary, insisted on their staying, and, to make sure of 
it, treated them as Apollo treated Marsyas, or as 
Bartholinus has treated a fellow-creature in his title- 
page, and, having divested them of the one essential 
and perfectly fitting garment, indispensable in the 
mildest climates, nailed the same on the church-door 
as we do the banns of marriage, in terror em. 

[There was a laugh at this among some of the 
young folks ; but as I looked at our landlady, I saw 
that " the water stood in her eyes," as it did in Chris- 
tiana's when the interpreter asked her about the 
spider, and I fancied, but wasn't quite sure that the 
schoolmistress blushed, as Mercy did in the same 
conversation, as you remember.] 

That sounds like a cock-and-bull story, — said the 
young fellow whom they call John. I abstained 
from making Hamlefs remark to Horatio, and con- 
tinued. 

Not long since, the church-wardens were repairing 
and beautifying an old Saxon church in a certain 
English village, and among other things thought the 
doors should be attended to. One of them particu- 
larly, the front-door, looked very badly, crusted, as it 
were, and as if it would be all the better for scraping. 
There happened to be a microscopist in the village 
who had heard the old pirate story, and he took it 
into his head to examine the crust on this door. 
There was no mistake about it ; it was a genuine 
historical document, of the Ziska drum-head pattern, 
— a real cutis huntana, stripped from some old Scandi- 
navian filibuster, and the legend was true. 

My friend, the Professor, settled an important his- 
torical and financial question once by the aid of an 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 107 

exceedingly minute fragment of a similar document. 
Behind the pane of plate-glass which bore his name 
and title burned a modest lamp, signifying to the 
passers-by that at all hours of the night the slightest 
favors (or fevers) were welcome. A youth who had 
freely partaken of the cup which cheers and likewise 
inebriates, following a moth-like impulse very nat- 
ural under the circumstances, dashed his fist at the 
light and quenched the meek luminary, — breaking 
through the plate-glass, of course, to reach it. Now 
I don't want to go into minutice at table, you know, 
but a naked hand can no more go through a pane of 
thick glass without leaving some of its cuticle, to say 
the least, behind it, than a butterfly can go through 
a sausage-machine without looking the worse for it. 
The Professor gathered up the fragments of glass, 
and with them certain very minute but entirely 
satisfactory documents which would have identified 
and hanged any rogue in Christendom who had 
parted with them. — The historical question, Who 
did it f and the financial question, Who paid for it f 
were both settled before the new lamp was lighted 
the next evening. 

You see, my friends, what immense conclusions, 
touching our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred 
honor, may be reached by means of very insignifi- 
cant premises. This is eminently true of manners 
and forms of speech ; a movement or a phrase often 
tells you all you want to know about a person. 
Thus, " How 's your health? " (commonly pronounced 
haaltJi) — instead of, How do you do? or, How are 
you ? Or calling your little dark entry a " hall," and 
your old rickety one-horse wagon a "kerridge.*' Or 
telling a person who has been trying to please you 



108 THE AUTOCRAT 

that he has given you pretty good (t sahtisfahction." 
Or saying that you " remember of" such a thing, or 
that you have been "stoppin' " at Deacon Some- 
body's, — and other such expressions. One of my 
friends had a little marble statuette of Cupid in the 
parlor of his country-house, — bow, arrows, wings, 
and all complete. A visitor, indigenous to the region, 
looking pensively at the figure, asked the lady of the 
house "if that was a statoo of her deceased infant?" 
What a delicious, though somewhat voluminous 
biography, social, educational, and aesthetic in that 
brief question ! 

[Please observe with what Machiavellian astute- 
ness I smuggled in the particular offence which it 
was my object to hold up to my fellow-boarders, 
without too personal an attack on the individual at 
whose door it lay.] 

That was an exceedingly dull person who made the 
remark, Ex pede Hercule7n. He might as well have 
said, u From a peck of apples you may judge of the 
barrel." Ex pede, to be sure ! Read, instead, Ex 
ungue mini?ni digiti pedis, Herculem, ejusque patrem, 
matrem, avos et proavos,ftlios, nepotes et pronepotes I 
Talk to me about your 86? irov otco / Tell me about 
Cuvier's getting up a megatherium from a tooth, or 
Agassiz's drawing a portrait of an undiscovered fish 
from a single scale ! As the " O " revealed Giotto, 
— as the one word "moi" betrayed the Stratford - 
atte-Bowe-taught Anglais, — so all a man's antece- 
dents and possibilities are summed up in a single 
utterance which gives at once the gauge of his edu- 
cation and his mental organization. 

Possibilities, Sir ? — said the divinity-student ; can't 
a man who says Haow f arrive at distinction ? 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. IO9 

Sir, — I replied, — in a republic all things are pos- 
sible. But the man with a future has almost of 
necessity sense enough to see that any odious trick 
of speech or manners must be got rid of. Doesn't 
Sydney Smith say that a public man in England 
never gets over a false quantity uttered in early life ? 
Our public men are in little danger of this fatal mis- 
step, as few of them are in the habit of introducing 
Latin into their speeches, — for good and sufficient 
reasons. But they are bound to speak decent Eng- 
lish, — unless, indeed, they are rough old campaign- 
ers, like General Jackson or General Taylor ; in 
which case, a few scars on Priscian's head are par- 
doned to old fellows who have quite as many on 
their own, and a constituency of thirty empires is 
not at all particular, provided they do not swear in 
their Presidential Messages. 

However, it is not for me to talk. I have made 
mistakes enough in conversation and print. I never 
find them out until they are stereotyped, and then I 
think they rarely escape me. I have no doubt I shall 
make half a dozen slips before this breakfast is over, 
and remember them all before another. How one 
does tremble with rage at his own intense momen- 
tary stupidity about things he knows perfectly well, 
and to think how he lays himself open to the imperti- 
nences of the captatores verborum, those useful but 
humble scavengers of the language, whose business 
it is to pick up what might offend or injure, and re- 
move it, hugging and feeding on it as they go ! I 
don't want to speak too slightingly of these verbal 
critics ; — how can I, who am so fond of talking about 
errors and vulgarisms of speech ? Only there is a 
difference between those clerical blunders which 



IIO THE AUTOCRAT 

almost every man commits, knowing better, and that 
habitual grossness or meanness of speech which is 
unendurable to educated persons, from anybody that 
wears silk or broadcloth. 

[I write down the above remarks this morning, 
January 26th, making this record of the date that 
nobody may think it was written in wrath, on account 
of any particular grievance suffered from the invasion 
of any individual scarabceus grainmaticus.~\ 

— I wonder if anybody ever finds fault with any- 
thing Isay at this table when it is repeated ? I hope 
they do, I am sure. I should be very certain that I 
had said nothing of much significance, if they did 
not. 

Did you never, in walking in the fields, come across 
a large flat stone, which had lain, nobody knows how 
long, just where you found it, with the grass form- 
ing a little hedge, as it were, all round it, close to its 
edges, — and have you not, in obedience to a kind 
of feeling that told you it had been lying there long 
enough, insinuated your stick or your foot or your 
fingers under its edge and turned it over as a house- 
wife turns a cake, when she says to herself, " I^s 
done brown enough by this time 1 '? What an odd 
revelation, and what an unforeseen and unpleasant 
surprise to a small community, the very existence 
of which you had not suspected, until the sudden dis- 
may and scattering among its members produced by 
your turning the old stone over! Blades of grass flat- 
tened down, colorless, matted together, as if they had 
been bleached and ironed ; hideous crawling creatures, 
some of them coleopterous or horny-shelled, — turtle- 
bugs one wants to call them ; some of them softer, 
but cunningly spread out and compressed like Lepine 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. Ill 

watches ; (Nature never loses a crack or a crevice, 
mind you, or a joint in a tavern bedstead, but she 
always has one of her flat-pattern live timekeepers to 
slide into it ;) black, glossy crickets, with their long 
filaments sticking out like the whips of four-horse 
stage-coaches ; motionless, slug-like creatures, young 
larvae, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness 
than even in the infernal wriggle of maturity ! But 
no sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome 
light of day let upon this compressed and blinded 
community of creeping things, than all of them which 
enjoy the luxury of legs — and some of them have a 
good many — rush round wildly, butting each other 
and everything in their way, and end in a general 
stampede for underground retreats from the region 
poisoned by sunshine. Next year you will find the 
grass growing tall and green where the stone lay ; 
the ground-bird builds her nest where the beetle had 
his hole ; the dandelion and the buttercup are grow- 
ing there, and the broad fans of insect-angels open 
and shut over their golden disks, as the rhythmic 
waves of blissful consciousness pulsate through their 
glorified being. 

— The young fellow whom they call John saw fit 
to say, in his very familiar way, — at which I do not 
choose to take offence, but which I sometimes think 
it necessary to repress, — that I was coming it rather 
strong on the butterflies. 

No, I replied ; there is meaning in each of those 
images, — the butterfly as well as the others. The 
stone is ancient error. The grass is human nature 
borne down and bleached of all its color by it. The 
shapes which are found beneath are the crafty beings 
that thrive in darkness, and the weaker organisms 



112 THE AUTOCRAT 

kept helpless by it. He who turns the stone over is 
whosoever puts the staff of truth to the old lying 
incubus, no matter whether he do it with a serious 
face or a laughing one. The next year stands for 
the coming time. Then shall the nature which had 
lain blanched and broken rise in its full stature and 
native hues in the sunshine. Then shall God's min- 
strels build their nests in the hearts of a newborn 
humanity. Then shall beauty — Divinity taking out- 
lines and color — light upon the souls of men as the 
butterfly, image of the beatified spirit rising from 
the dust, soars from the shell that held a poor grub, 
which would never have found wings, had not the stone 
been lifted. 

You never need think you can turn over any old 
falsehood without a terrible squirming and scattering 
of the horrid little population that dwells under it. 

— Every real thought on every real subject knocks 
the wind out of somebody or other. As soon as his 
breath comes back, he very probably begins to ex- 
pend it in hard words. These are the best evidence a 
man can have that he has said something it was time to 
say. Dr. Johnson was disappointed in the effect of one 
of his pamphlets. "I think I have not been attacked 
enough for it," he said ; — " attack is the reaction ; I 
never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds." 

— If a fellow attacked my opinions in print, would 
I reply? Not I. Do you think I don't understand 
what my friend, the Professor, long ago called the 
hydrostatic paradox of controversy f 

Don't know what that means? — Well, I will tell 
you. You know, that, if you had a bent tube, one 
arm of which was of the size of a pipe-stem, and the 
other big enough to hold the ocean, water would stand 





'Did. you never, in walking across the Fields, come across a Large 
Flat Stone?" 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 113 

at the same height in one as in the other. Contro- 
versy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way, — 
and the fools know it. 

— No, but I often read what they say about other 
people. There are about a dozen phrases which all 
come tumbling along together, like the tongs, and 
the shovel, and the poker, and the brush, and the 
bellows, in one of those domestic avalanches that 
everybody knows. If you get one, you get the whole 
lot. 

What are they? — Oh, that depends a good deal on 
latitude and longitude. Epithets follow the isother- 
mal lines pretty accurately. Grouping them in two 
families, one finds himself a clever, genial, witty, wise, 
brilliant, sparkling, thoughtful, distinguished, cele- 
brated, illustrious scholar and perfect gentleman, and 
first writer of the age ; or a dull, foolish, wicked, pert, 
shallow, ignorant, insolent, traitorous, black-hearted 
outcast, and disgrace to civilization. 

What do I think determines the set of phrases a 
man gets? — Well, I should say a set of influences 
something like these: — 1st. Relationships, political, 
religious, social, domestic. 2d. Oysters ; in the form 
of suppers given to gentlemen connected with criti- 
cism. I believe in the school, the college, and the 
clergy ; but my sovereign logic, for regulating pub- 
lic opinion — which means commonly the opinion 
of half a dozen of the critical gentry — is the follow- 
ing: Major proposition. Oysters au natur el. Minor 
proposition. The same "scalloped." Conclusion. 

That (here insert entertainer's name) is clever, 

witty, wise, brilliant, — and the rest. 

• — No, it isn't exactly bribery. One man has 
oysters, and another epithets. It is an exchange of 



114 THE AUTOCRAT 

hospitalities ; one gives a " spread " on linen, and the 
other on paper, — that is all. Don't you think you 
and I should be apt to do just so, if we were in the 
critical line ? I am sure I could n't resist the soften- 
ing influences of hospitality. I don't like to dine out, 
you know, — I dine so well at our own table, [our 
landlady looked radiant,] and the company is so 
pleasant [a rustling movement of satisfaction among 
the boarders] ; but if I did partake of a man's salt, 
with such additions as that article of food requires to 
make it palatable, I could never abuse him, and if I 
had to speak of him, I suppose I should hang my set 
of jingling epithets round him like a string of sleigh- 
bells.- Good feeling helps society to make liars of 
most of us, — not absolute liars, but such careless 
handlers of truth that its sharp corners get terribly 
rounded. I love truth as chiefest among the virtues ; 
I trust it runs in my blood ; but I would never be a 
critic, because I know I could not always tell it. I 
might write a criticism of a book that happened to 
please me ; that is another matter. 

— Listen, Benjamin Franklin ! This is for you, 
and such others of tender age as you may tell it to. 

When we are as yet small children, long before the 
time when those two grown ladies offer us the choice 
of Hercules, there comes up to us a youthful angel, 
holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and in his 
left spheres like marbles. The cubes are of stainless 
ivory, and on each is written in letters of gold — 
Truth. The spheres are veined and streaked and 
spotted beneath, with a dark crimson flush above, 
where the light falls on them, and in a certain aspect 
you can make out upon every one of them the three 
letters L, I, E. The child to whom they are offered 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 1 1 5 

very probably clutches at both. The spheres are the 
most convenient things in the world ; they roll with 
the least possible impulse just where the child would 
have them. The cubes will not roll at all ; they have 
a great talent for standing still, and always keep right 
side up. But very soon the young philosopher finds 
that things which roll so easily are very apt to roll 
into the wrong corner, and to get out of his way when 
he most wants them, while he always knows where to 
find the others, which stay where they are left. Thus 
he learns — thus we learn — to drop the streaked and 
speckled globes of falsehood and to hold fast the white 
angular blocks of truth. But then comes Timidity, 
and after her Good-nature, arid last of all Polite- 
behavior, all insisting that truth must roll, or nobody 
can do anything with it ; and so the first with her 
coarse rasp, and the second with her broad file, and 
the third with her silken sleeve, do so round off and 
smooth and polish the snow-white cubes of truth, 
that, when they have got a little dingy by use, it 
becomes hard to tell them from the rolling spheres 
of falsehood. J 

The schoolmistress was polite enough to say that 
she was pleased with this, and that she would read it 
to her little flock the next day. But she should tell 
the children, she said, that there were better reasons 
for truth than could be found in mere experience of 
its convenience and the inconvenience of lying. 

Yes, — I said, — but education always begins through 
the senses, and works up to the idea of absolute right 
and wrong. The first thing the child has to learn 
about this matter is, that lying is unprofitable, — after- 
wards, that it is against the peace and dignity of the 
universe. 



Il6 THE AUTOCRAT 

— Do I think that the particular form of lying 
often seen in newspapers, under the title, " From our 
Foreign Correspondent/'' does any harm ? — Why, no, 

— I don't know that it does. I suppose it doesn't 
really deceive people any more than the " Arabian 
Nights " or " Gulliver's Travels " do. Sometimes the 
writers compile too carelessly, though, and mix up 
facts out of geographies, and stories out of the penny 
papers, so as to mislead those who are desirous of 
information. I cut a piece out of one of the papers, 
the other day, which contains a number of improba- 
bilities, and, I suspect, misstatements. I will send 
up and get it for you, if you would like to hear it. 

— Ah, this is it ; it is headed 

"Our Sumatra Correspondence. 

" This island is now the property of the Stamford 
family, — having been won, it is said, in a raffle, by 

Sir Stamford, during the stock-gambling mania 

of the South-Sea Scheme. The history of this gentle- 
man may be found in an interesting series of ques- 
tions (unfortunately not yet answered) contained in 
the ' Notes and Queries. 1 This island is entirely sur- 
rounded by the ocean, which here contains a large 
amount of saline substance, crystallizing in cubes re- 
markable for their symmetry, and frequently displays 
on its surface, during calm weather, the rainbow tints 
of the celebrated South-Sea bubbles. The summers 
are oppressively hot, and the winters very probably 
cold; but this fact cannot be ascertained precisely, 
as, for some peculiar reason, the mercury in these 
latitudes never shrinks, as in more northern regions, 
and thus the thermometer is rendered useless in 
winter. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 117 

u The principal vegetable productions of the island 
are the pepper tree and the bread-fruit tree. Pepper 
being very abundantly produced, a benevolent society 
was organized in London during the last century for 
supplying the natives with vinegar and oysters, as an 
addition to that delightful condiment. [Note received 
from Dr. D. P.] It is said, however, that, as the oys- 
ters were of the kind called natives in England, the 
natives of Sumatra, in obedience to a natural instinct, 
refused to touch them, and confined themselves en- 
tirely to the crew of the vessel in which they were 
brought over. This information was received from 
one of the oldest inhabitants, a native himself, and 
exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is said also to 
be very skilful in the cuisine peculiar to the island. 

"During the season of gathering the pepper, the 
persons employed are subject to various incom modi- 
ties, the chief of which is violent and long-continued 
sternutation, or sneezing. Such is the vehemence 
of these attacks, that the unfortunate subjects of them 
are often driven backward for great distances at im- 
mense speed, on the well-known principle of the 
aeolipile. Not being able to see where they are going, 
these poor creatures dash themselves to pieces against 
the rocks or are precipitated over the cliffs, and thus 
many valuable lives are lost annually. As, during 
the whole pepper-harvest, they feed exclusively on 
this stimulant, they become exceedingly irritable. 
The smallest injury is resented with ungovernable 
rage. A young man suffering from the pepper-fever, 
as it is called, cudgelled another most severely for 
appropriating a superannuated relative of trifling 
value, and was only pacified by having a present 
made him of a pig of that peculiar species of swine 



Il8 THE AUTOCRAT 

called the Peccavi by the Catholic Jews, who, it is 
well known, abstain from swine's flesh in imitation of 
the Mahometan Buddhists. 

" The bread-tree grows abundantly. Its branches 
are well known to Europe and America under the 
familiar name of maccaroni. The smaller twigs are 
called vermicelli. They have a decided animal flavor, 
as may be observed in the soups containing them. 
Maccaroni, being tubular, is the favorite habitat of a 
very dangerous insect, which is rendered peculiarly 
ferocious by being boiled. The government of the 
island, therefore, never allows a stick of it to be ex- 
ported without being accompanied by a piston with 
which its cavity may at any time be thoroughly swept 
out. These are commonly lost or stolen before the 
maccaroni arrives among us. It therefore always con- 
tains many of these insects, which, however, generally 
die of old age in the shops, so that accidents from this 
source are comparatively rare. 

" The fruit of the bread-tree consists principally of 
hot rolls. The buttered muffin variety is supposed 
to be a hybrid with the cocoa-nut palm, the cream 
found on the milk of the cocoa-nut exuding from the 
hybrid in the shape of butter, just as the ripe fruit is 
splitting, so as to fit it for the tea-table, where it is 
commonly served up with cold — " 

— There, — I don't want to read any more of it. 
You see that many of these statements are highly im- 
probable. — No, I shall not mention the paper. — No, 
neither of them wrote it, though it reminds me of the 
style of these popular writers. I think the fellow who 
wrote it must have been reading some of their stories, 
and got them mixed up with his history and geog- 
raphy. I don't suppose he lies ; — he sells it to the 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 119 

editor, who knows how many squares off " Sumatra " 
is. The editor, who sells it to the public — By the 
way, the papers have been very civil — have n't they ? 
— to the — the — what d' ye call it ? — " Northern 
Magazine," — is n't it ? — got up by some of those 
Come-outers, down East, as an organ for their local 
peculiarities. 

— The Professor has been to see me. Came in, 
glorious, at about twelve o'clock, last night. Said he 
had been with "the boys." On inquiry, found that 
"the boys" were certain baldish and grayish old 
gentlemen that one sees or hears of in various im- 
portant stations of society. The Professor is one of 
the same set, but he always talks as if he had been 

out of college about ten years, whereas 

. . . [Each of these dots was a little nod, which the 
company understood, as the reader will, no doubt.] 
He calls them sometimes "the boys," and sometimes 
" the old fellows." Call him by the latter title, and see 
how he likes it. — Well, he came in last night, glori- 
ous, as I was saying. Of course I don't mean vinously 
exalted ; he drinks little wine on such occasions, and 
is well known to all the Peters and Patricks as the 
gentleman who always has indefinite quantities of 
black tea to kill any extra glass of red claret he may 
have swallowed. But the Professor says he always 
gets tipsy on old memories at these gatherings. He 
was, I forget how many years old when he went to 
the meeting; just turned of twenty now, — he said. 
He made various youthful proposals to me, including 
a duet under the landlady's daughter's window. He 
had just learned a trick, he said, of one of " the 
boys," of getting a splendid bass out of a door-panel 
by rubbing it with the palm of his hand. Offered to 



120 THE AUTOCRAT 

sing " The sky is bright," accompanying himself on 
the front-door, if I would go down and help in the 
chorus. Said there never was such a set of fellows 
as the old boys of the set he has been with. Judges, 
mayors, Congress-men, Mr. Speakers, leaders in sci- 
ence, clergymen better than famous, and famous too, 
poets by the half-dozen, singers with voices like angels, 
financiers, wits, three of the best laughers in the Com- 
monwealth, engineers, agriculturists, — all forms of 
talent and knowledge he pretended were represented 
in that meeting. Then he began to quote Byron 
about Santa Croce, and maintained that he could 
"furnish out creation" in all its details from that set 
of his. He would like to have the whole boodle of 
them, ( I remonstrated against this word, but the Pro- 
fessor said it was a diabolish good word, and he would 
have no other,) with their wives and children, ship- 
wrecked on a remote island, just to see how splendidly 
they would reorganize society. They could build a city, 
— they have done it ; make constitutions and laws ; 
establish churches and lyceums ; teach and practise 
the healing art ; instruct in every department ; found 
observatories ; create commerce and manufactures ; 
write songs and hymns, and sing 'em, and make 
instruments to accompany the songs with ; lastly, 
publish a journal almost as good as the " Northern 
Magazine," edited by the Come-outers. There was 
nothing they were not up to, from a christening to a 
hanging ; the last, to be sure, could never be called 
for, unless some stranger got in among them. 

— I let the Professor talk as long as he liked ; it 
didn 't make much difference to me whether it was all 
truth, or partly made up of pale Sherry and similar ele- 
ments. All at once he jumped up and said, — 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 121 

Don't you want to hear what I just read to the boys ? 

I have had questions of a similar character asked 
me before, occasionally. A man of iron mould might 
perhaps say. No ! I am not a man of iron mould, and 
said that I should be delighted. 

The Professor then read — with that slightly sing- 
song cadence which is observed to be common in 
poets reading their own verses — the following stan- 
zas ; holding them at a focal distance of about two 
feet and a half, with an occasional movement back or 
forward for better adjustment, the appearance of which 
has been likened by some impertinent young folks to 
that of the act of playing on the trombone. His eye- 
sight was never better ; I have his word for it. 

MARE RUBRUM. 

FLASH out a stream of blood-red wine ! — 

For I would drink to other days ; 
And brighter shall their memory shine, 

Seen flaming through its crimson blaze. 
The roses die, the summers fade; 

But every ghost of boyhood's dream 
By Nature's magic power is laid 

To sleep beneath this blood-red stream. 

It filled the purple grapes that lay 

And drank the splendors of the sun 
Where the long summer's cloudless day 

Is mirrored in the broad Garonne ; 
It pictures still the bacchant shapes 

That saw their hoarded sunlight shed, — 
The maidens dancing on the grapes, — 

Their milk-white ankles splashed with red. 

Beneath these waves of crimson lie, 

In rosy fetters prisoned fast, 
Those flitting shapes that never die, 

The swift-winged visions of the past. . 



122 A UTOCRA T OF THE BREAKFAST- TABLE. 

Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim, 

Each shadow rends its flowery chain, 

Springs in a bubble from its brim 
And walks the chambers of the brain. 

Poor Beauty ! time and fortune's wrong 

No form nor feature may withstand, — 
Thy wrecks are scattered all along, 

Like emptied sea-shells on the sand ; — 
Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain, 

The dust restores each blooming girl, 
As if the sea-shells moved again 

Their glistening lips of pink and pearl. 

Here lies the home of school-boy life, 

With creating stair and wind-swept hall, 
And, scarred by many a truant knife, 

Our old initials on the wall ; 
Here rest — their keen vibrations mute — 

The shout of voices known so well, 
The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, 

The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell. 

Here, clad in burning robes, are laid 

Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed; 
And here those cherished forms have strayed 

We miss awhile, and call them dead. 
What wizard fills the maddening glass ? 

What soil the enchanted clusters grew, 
That buried passions wake and pass 

In beaded drops of fiery dew ? 

Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine, — 

Our hearts can boast a warmer glow, 
Filled from a vintage more divine, — 

Calmed, but not chilled by winter's snow ! 
To-night the palest wave we sip 

Rich as the priceless draught shall be 
That wet the bride of Cana's lip, — 

The wedding wine of Galilee ! 



VI. 



Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which 
fits them all. 

— I think, Sir, — said the divinity-student, — you 
must intend that for one of the sayings of the Seven 
Wise Men of Boston you were speaking of the other 
day. 

I thank you, my young friend, — was my reply, — 
but I must say something better than that, before I 
could pretend to fill out the number. 

— The schoolmistress wanted to know how many 
of these sayings there were on record, and what, and 
by whom said. 

— Why, let us see, — there is that one of Benjamin 
Franklin, " the great Bostonian," after whom this lad 
was named. To be sure, he said a great many wise 
things, — and I don't feel sure he didn't borrow this, 
— he speaks as if it were old. But then he applied it 
so neatly ! — 

" He that has once done you a kindness will be 
more ready to do you another than he whom you 
yourself have obliged." 

Then there is that glorious Epicurean paradox, ut- 
tered by my friend, the Historian, in one of his flash- 
ing moments : — 

" Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense 
with its necessaries.'' 1 

To these must certainly be added that other saying 
of one of the wittiest of men : — 
123 



124 THE AUTOCRAT 

" Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris." 

— The divinity-student looked grave at this, but 
said nothing. 

The schoolmistress spoke out, and said she didn't 
think the wit meant any irreverence. It was only 
another way of saying, Paris is a heavenly place after 
New York or Boston. 

A jaunty-looking person, who had come in with the 
young fellow they call John, — evidently a stranger, 

— said there was one more wise man's saying that he 
had heard ; it was about our place, but he didn't know 
who said it. — A civil curiosity was manifested by 
the company to hear the fourth wise saying. I heard 
him distinctly whispering to the young fellow who 
brought him to dinner, Shall I tell it? To which 
the answer was, Go ahead I — Well, — he said, — this 
was what I heard : — 

" Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. 
You could n't pry that out of a Boston man, if you had 
the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar." 

Sir, — said I, — I am gratified with your remark. It 
expresses with pleasing vivacity that which I have 
sometimes heard uttered with malignant dulness. The 
satire of the remark is essentially true of Boston, — 
and of all other considerable — and inconsiderable — 
places with which I have had the privilege of being 
acquainted. Cockneys think London is the only place 
in the world. Frenchmen — you remember the line 
about Paris, the Court, the World, etc. — I recollect 
well, by. the way, a sign in that city which ran thus : 
" Hotel de l'Univers et des Etats Unis " ; and as Paris 
is the universe to a Frenchman, of course the United 
States are outside of it. — " See Naples and then die." 

— It is quite as bad with smaller places. I have been 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 25 

about, lecturing, you know, and have found the follow- 
ing propositions to hold true of all of them. 
^ 1. The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through 
the centre of each and every town or city. 

2. If more than fifty years have passed since its 
foundation, it is affectionately styled by the inhabit- 
ants the "good old town of" — (whatever its name 
may happen to be). 

3. Every collection of its inhabitants that comes 
together to listen to a stranger is invariably declared 
to be a "remarkably intelligent audience." 

4. The climate of the place is particularly favorable 
to longevity. 

5. It contains several persons of vast talent little 
known to the world. (One or two of them, you may 
perhaps chance to remember, sent short pieces to the 
" Pactolian " some time since, which were " respect- 
fully declined.") 

Boston is just like other places of its size ; — only 
perhaps, considering its excellent fish -market, paid 
fire-department, superior monthly publications, and 
correct habit of spelling the English language, it has 
some right to look down on the mob of cities. 1 11 
tell you, though, if you want to know it, what is the 
real offence of Boston. It drains a large water-shed 
of its intellect, and will not itself be drained. If it 
would only send away its first-rate men, instead of its 
second-rate ones, (no offence to the well-known ex- 
ceptions, of which we are always proud,) we should 
be spared such epigrammatic remarks as that which 
the gentleman has quoted. There can never be a 
real metropolis in this country, until the biggest centre 
can drain the lesser ones of their talent and wealth. 
— I have observed, by the way, that the people who 



126 THE AUTOCRAT 

really live in two great cities are by no means so jeal- 
ous of each other, as are those of smaller cities situated 
within the intellectual basin, or suction-range ', of one 
large one, of the pretensions of any other. Don't you 
see why ? Because their promising young author and 
rising lawyer and large capitalist have been drained 
off to the neighboring big city, — their prettiest girl 
has been exported to the same market ; all their am- 
bition points there, and all their thin gilding of glory 
comes from there. I hate little toad-eating cities. 

— Would I be so good as to specify any particular 
example ? — Oh, — an example ? Did you ever see a 
bear-trap ? Never ? Well, should n't you like to see 
me put my foot into one ? With sentiments of the 
highest consideration I must beg leave to be excused. 

Besides, some of the smaller cities are charming. 
If they have an old church or two, a few stately 
mansions of former grandees, here and there an old 
dwelling with the second story projecting, (for the 
convenience of shooting the Indians knocking at the 
front-door with their tomahawks,) — if they have, scat- 
tered about, those mighty square houses built some- 
thing more than half a century ago, and standing like 
architectural boulders dropped by the former diluvium 
of wealth, whose refluent wave has left them as its 
monument, — if they have gardens with elbowed apple- 
trees that push their branches over the high board- 
fence and drop their fruit on the side-walk, — if they 
have a little grass in the side streets, enough to 
betoken quiet without proclaiming decay, — I think 
I could go to pieces, after my life's work were done, 
in one of those tranquil places, as sweetly as in any 
cradle that an old man may be rocked to sleep in. 
1 visit such spots always with infinite delight. My 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. \2J 

friend, the Poet, says, that rapidly growing towns are 
most unfavorable to the imaginative and reflective fac- 
ulties. Let a man live in one of these old quiet places, 
he says, and the wine of his soul, which is kept thick 
and turbid by the rattle of busy streets, settles, and, 
as you hold it up, you may see the sun through it by 
day and the stars by night. 

— Do I think that the little villages have the 
conceit of the great towns ? — I don't believe there is 
much difference. You know how they read Pope's 
line in the smallest town in our State of Massa- 
chusetts ? — Well, they read it 

"All are but parts of one stupendous HULL ! " 

— Every person's feelings have a front-door and 
a side-door by which they may be entered. The 
front-door is on the street. Some keep it always 
open ; some keep it latched ; some, locked ; some, 
bolted, — with a chain that will let you peep in, but 
not get in ; and some nail it up, so that nothing can 
pass its threshold. This front-door leads into a pas- 
sage which opens into an ante-room, and this into 
the interior apartments. The side-door opens at 
once into the sacred chambers. 

There is almost always at least one key to this 
side-door. This is carried for years hidden in a 
mother's bosom. Fathers, brothers, sisters, and 
friends, often, but by no means so universally, have 
duplicates of it. The wedding-ring conveys a right 
to one ; alas, if none is given with it ! 

If nature or accident has put one of these keys 
into the hands of a person who has the torturing 
instinct, I can only solemnly pronounce the words 
that Justice utters over its doomed victim, — The 



128 THE AUTOCRAT 

Lord have mercy on your soul I You will probably 
go mad within a reasonable time, — or, if you are a 
man, run off and die with your head on a curb-stone, 
in Melbourne or San Francisco, — or, if you are a 
woman, quarrel and break your heart, or turn into 
a pale, jointed petrifaction that moves about as if it 
were alive, or play some real life-tragedy or other. 

Be very careful to whom you trust one of these 
keys of the side-door. The fact of possessing one 
renders those even who are dear to you very terrible 
at times. You can keep the world out from your 
front-door, or receive visitors only when you are 
ready for them; but those of your own flesh and 
blood, or of certain grades of intimacy, can come in 
at the side-door, if they will, at any hour and in any 
mood. Some of them have a scale of your whole 
nervous system, and can play all the gamut of your 
sensibilities in semitones, — touching the naked nerve- 
pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his instrument. 
I am satisfied that there are as great masters of this 
nerve-playing as Vieuxtemps or Thalberg in their 
lines of performance. Married life is the school in 
which the most accomplished artists in this depart- 
ment are found. A delicate woman is the best 
instrument ; she has such a magnificent compass of 
sensibilities ! From the deep inward moan which 
follows pressure on the great nerves of right, to the 
sharp cry as the filaments of taste are struck with a 
crashing sweep, is a range which no other instrument 
possesses. A few exercises on it daily at home fit a 
man wonderfully for his habitual labors, and refresh 
him immensely as he returns from them. No stranger 
can get a great many notes of torture out of a human 
soul ; it takes one that knows it well, — parent, child, 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 29 

brother, sister, intimate. Be very careful to whom you 
give a side-door key ; too many have them already. ) 

— You remember the old story of the tender- 
hearted man, who placed a frozen viper in his bosom, 
and was stung by it when it became thawed ? If we 
take a cold-blooded creature into our bosom, better 
that it should sting us and we should die than that 
its chill should slowly steal into our hearts ; warm it 
we never can ! I have seen faces of women that 
were fair to look upon, yet one could see that the 
icicles were forming round these women's hearts. I 
knew what freezing image lay on the white breasts 
beneath the laces \J 

A very simple intellectual mechanism answers the 
necessities of friendship, and even of the most inti- 
mate relations of life. If a watch tells us the hour 
and the minute, we can be content to carry it about 
with us for a life-time, though it has no second-hand 
and is not a repeater, nor a musical watch, — though 
it is not enamelled nor jewelled, — in short, though it 
has little beyond the wheels required for a trust- 
worthy instrument, added to a good face and a pair 
of useful hands. The more wheels there are in a 
watch or a brain, the more trouble they are to take 
care of. The movements of exaltation which belong 
to genius are egotistic by their very nature. A calm, 
clear mind, not subject to the spasms and crises 
which are so often met with in creative or intensely 
perceptive natures, is the best basis for love or friend- 
ship. — Observe, I am talking about minds. I won't 
say, the more intellect, the less capacity for loving ; 
for that would do wrong to the understanding and 
reason ; — but, on the other hand, that the brain often 
runs away with the heart's best blood, which gives 



I30 THE AUTOCRAT 

the world a few pages of wisdom or sentiment or 
poetry, instead of making one other heart happy, I 
have no question. 

If one's intimate in love or friendship cannot or 
does not share all one's intellectual tastes or pursuits, 
that is a small matter. Intellectual companions can 
be found easily in men and books. After all, if we 
think of it, most of the world's loves and friendships 
have been between people that could not read nor 
spell. 

But to radiate the heat of the affections into a clod, 
which absorbs all that is poured into it, but never 
warms beneath the sunshine of smiles or the pressure 
of hand or lip, — this is the great martyrdom of sen- 
sitive beings, — most of all in that perpetual auto da 
fe where young womanhood is in sacrifice. 

— You noticed, perhaps, what I just said about the 
loves and friendships of illiterate persons, — that is, 
of the human race, with a few exceptions here and 
there. I like books, — I was born and bred among 
them, and have the easy feeling, when I get into their 
presence, that a stable-boy has among horses. I 
don't think I undervalue them either as companions 
or as instructors. But I can't help remembering 
that the world's great men have not commonly been 
great scholars, nor its great scholars great men. The 
Hebrew patriarchs had small libraries, I think, if 
any ; yet they represent to our imaginations a very 
complete idea of manhood, and, I think, if we could 
ask in Abraham to dine with us men of letters next 
Saturday, we should feel honored by his company. 

What I wanted to say about books is this : that 
there are times in which every active mind feels itself 
above any and all human books. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 131 

— I think a man must have a good opinion of him- 
self, Sir, — said the divinity-student, — who should 
feel himself above Shakspeare at any time. 

My young friend, — I replied, — the man who is 
never conscious of a state of feeling or of intellectual 
effort entirely beyond expression by any form of words 
whatsoever is a mere creature of language. I can 
hardly believe there are any such men. Why, think 
for a moment of the power of music. The nerves 
that make us alive to it spread out (so the Professor 
tells me) in the most sensitive region of the marrow, 
just where it is widening to run upwards into the 
hemispheres. It has its seat in the region of sense 
rather than of thought. Yet it produces a continuous 
and, as it were, logical sequence of emotional and in- 
tellectual changes ; but how different from trains of 
thought proper ! how entirely beyond the reach of 
symbols ! — Think of human passions as compared 
with all phrases ! Did you ever hear of a man's 
growing lean by the reading of " Romeo and Juliet," 
or blowing his brains out because Desdemona was 
maligned? There are a good many symbols, even, 
that are more expressive than words. I remember 
a young wife who had to part with her husband for 
a time. She did not write a mournful poem ; indeed, 
she was a silent person, and perhaps hardly said a 
word about it ; but she quietly turned of a deep 
orange color with jaundice. A great many people in 
this world have but one form of rhetoric for their 
profoundest experiences, — namely, to waste away 
and die. When a man can read, his paroxysm of 
feeling is passing. When he can read, his thought 
has slackened its hold. — You talk about reading 
Shakspeare, using him as an expression for the 



132 THE AUTOCRAT 

highest intellect, and you wonder that any common 
person should be so presumptuous as to suppose his 
thought can rise above the text which lies before 
him. But think a moment. A child's reading of 
Shakspeare is one thing, and Coleridge's or Schle- 
gePs reading of him is another. The saturation-point 
of each mind differs from that of every other. But 
I think it is as true for the small mind which can 
only take up a little as for the great one which takes 
up much, that the suggested trains of thought and 
feeling ought always to rise above — not the author, 
but the reader's mental version of the author, whoever 
he may be. 

I think most readers of Shakspeare sometimes find 
themselves thrown into exalted mental conditions 
like those produced by music. Then they may drop 
the book, to pass at once into the region of thought 
without words. We may happen to be very dull 
folks, you and I, and probably are, unless there is 
some particular reason to suppose the contrary. But 
we get glimpses now and then of a sphere of spiritual 
possibilities, where we, dull as we are now, may sail 
in vast circles round the largest compass of earthly 
intelligences. 

— I confess there are times when I feel like the 
friend I mentioned to you some time ago, — I hate 
the very sight of a book. Sometimes it becomes 
almost a physical necessity to talk out what is in the 
mind, before putting anything else into it. It is very 
bad to have thoughts and feelings, which were meant 
to come out in talk, strike in, as they say of some 
complaints that ought to show outwardly. 

I always believed in life rather than in books. I 
suppose every day of earth, with its hundred thou- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 33 

sand deaths and something more of births, — with its 
loves and hates, its triumphs and defeats, its pangs 
and blisses, has more of humanity in it than all the 
books that were ever written, put together. I believe 
the flowers growing at this moment send up more 
fragrance to heaven than was ever exhaled from all 
the essences ever distilled. 

— Don't I read up various matters to talk about at 
this table or elsewhere ? — No, that is the last thing 
I would do. I will tell you my rule. Talk about 
those subjects you have had long in your mind, and 
listen to what others say about subjects you have 
studied but recently. Knowledge and timber 
should n't be much used till they are seasoned. 

— Physiologists and metaphysicians have had 
their attention turned a good deal of late to the 
automatic and involuntary actions of the mind. Put 
an idea into your intelligence and leave it there an 
hour, a day, a year, without ever having occasion to 
refer to it. When, at last, you return to it, you do 
not find it as it was when acquired. It has domi- 
ciliated itself, so to speak, — become at home, — 
entered into relations with your other thoughts, and 
integrated itself with the whole fabric of the mind. 
— Or take a simple and familiar example ; Dr. Car- 
penter has adduced it. You forget a name, in con- 
versation, — go on talking, without making any effort 
to recall it, — and presently the mind evolves it by 
its own involuntary and unconscious action, while 
you were pursuing another train of thought, and the 
name rises of itself to your lips. 

There are some curious observations I should like 
to make about the mental machinery, but I think we 
are getting rather didactic. 



134 THE AUTOCRAT 

— I should be gratified, if Benjamin Franklin would 
let me know something of his progress in the French 
language. I rather liked that exercise he read us the 
other day, though I must confess I should hardly dare 
to translate it, for fear some people in a remote city 
where I once lived might think I was drawing their 
portraits. 

— Yes, Paris is a famous place for societies. I don't 
know whether the piece I mentioned from the French 
author was intended simply as Natural History, or 
whether there was not a little malice in his descrip- 
tion. At any rate, when I gave my translation to 
B. F. to turn back again into French, one reason was 
that I thought it would sound a little bald in English, 
and some people might think it was meant to have 
some local bearing or other, — 1 which the author, of 
course, did n't mean, inasmuch as he could not be ac- 
quainted with anything on this side of the water. 

[The above remarks were addressed to the school- 
mistress, to whom I handed the paper after looking 
it over. The divinity-student came and read over 
her shoulder, — very curious, apparently, but his eyes 
wandered, I thought. Fancying that her breathing 
was somewhat hurried and high, or thoracic, as my 
friend, the Professor, calls it, I watched her a little 
more closely. — It is none of my business. — After all, 
it is the imponderables that move the world, — heat, 
electricity, love. — Habetf] 

This is the piece that Benjamin Franklin made into 
boarding-school French, such as you see here ; don't 
expect too much; — the mistakes give a relish to it, 
I think. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 35 

LES SOCIETES POLYPHYSIOPHILOSOPHIQUES. 

Ces Societes la sont une Institution pour suppleer 
aux besoins cTesprit et de cceur de ces individus qui 
ont survecu a leurs emotions a Pegard du beau sexe, 
et qui n'ont pas la distraction de Phabitude de boire. 

Pour devenir membre d'une de ces Societes, on doit 
avoir le moins de cheveux possible. S'il y en reste 
plusieurs qui resistent aux depilatoires naturelles et 
autres, on doit avoir quelques connaissances, n'im- 
porte dans quel genre. Des le moment qu'on ouvre 
la porte de la Societe, on a un grand interet dans 
toutes les choses dont on ne sait rien. Ainsi, un mi- 
croscopiste de'montre un nouveau flexor du tarse d'un 
melolontha vulgaris. Douze savans improvises, por- 
tans des besides, et qui ne connaissent rien des in- 
sectes, si ce n'est les morsures du culex, se pre'cipitent 
sur Pinstrument, et voient — une grande bulle d'air, dont 
ils s^emerveillent avec effusion. Ce qui est un spec- 
tacle plein destruction — pour ceux qui ne sont pas 
de ladite Societe. Tous les membres regardent les 
chimistes en particulier avec un air d'intelligence par- 
faite pendant qu'ils prouvent dans un discours d\ine 
demiheure que O 6 N 3 H 5 C 6 etc. font quelque chose 
qui n'est bonne a rien, mais qui probablement a une 
odeur tres desagreable, selon Phabitude des produits 
chimiques. Apres cela vient un mathematicien qui 
vous bourre avec des a + b et vous rapporte enfin un 
x+y, dont vous n'avez pas besoin et qui ne change 
nullement vos relations avec la vie. Un naturaliste 
vous parle des formations speciales des animaux ex- 
cessivement inconnus, dont vous n'avez jamais soup- 
9onne Pexistence. Ainsi il vous decrit les follicules 
de V appendix vermiformis d'un dzigguetai. Vous ne 



136 THE AUTOCRAT 

savez pas ce que c 1 est qu'un follicule. Vous ne savez 
pas ce que c'est qu'un appendix uer?niforfnis \ Vous 
n'avez jamais entendu parler du dzigguetai. Ainsi 
vous gagnez toutes ces connaissances a la fois, qui s'at- 
tachent a votre esprit comme Peau adhere aux plumes 
d'un canard. On connait toutes les langues ex officio 
en devenant membre d'une de ces Societes. Ainsi 
quand on entend lire un Essai sur les dialectes Tchu- 
tchiens, on comprend tout cela de suite, et s'instruit 
emormement. 

II y a deux especes d'individus qu'on trouve tou- 
jours a ces Societe's : i° Le membre a questions ; 
2 Le membre a " Bylaws. " 

La question est une speciality. Celui qui en fait 
me'tier ne fait jamais des reponses. La question est 
une maniere tres commode de dire les choses sui- 
vantes : "Me voila! Je ne suis pas fossil, moi, — je 
respire encore! J'ai des ide'es, — voyez mon intel- 
ligence! Vous ne croyiez pas, vous autres, que je 
savais quelque chose de cela! Ah, nous avons un 
peu de sagacite, voyez vous ! Nous ne sommes nulle- 
ment la bete qu'on pense!" — Le faiseur de ques- 
tions donne pen d'' attention aux reponses qu'on fait ; 
ce ri* est pas la dans sa speciality . 

Le membre a "Bylaws" est le bouchon de toutes 
les emotions mousseuses et genereuses qui se 
montrent dans la Societe. C'est un empereur 
manque', — un tyran a la troisieme trituration. Cest 
un esprit dur, borne, exact, grand dans les petitesses, 
petit dans les grandeurs, selon le mot du grand 
Jefferson. On ne Palme pas dans la Societe, mais 
on le respecte et on le craint. II n 7 y a qu'un mot 
pour ce membre audessus de "Bylaws." Ce mot 
est pour lui ce que TOm est aux Hindous. Cest 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 37 

sa religion ; il n'y a rien audela. Ce mot la c'est la 
Constitution ! 

Lesdites Societes publient des feuilletons de terns 
en terns. On les trouve abandonnes a sa porte, nus 
comme des enfans nouveaunes, faute de membrane 
cutanee, ou meme papyracee. Si on aime la botan- 
ique, on y trouve une memoire sur les coquilles ; si on 
fait des etudes zoologiques, on trouve un grand tas 
de q'V - x ? ce °i u i doit etre infiniment plus commode 
que les encyclope'dies. Ainsi il est clair comme la 
metaphysique qu'on doit devenir membre d'une So- 
ciete telle que nous decrivons. 

Recette pour le Dipilatoire Physiophilosophique. 

Chaux vive lb. ss. Eau bouillante Oj. 

Depilez avec. Polissez ensuite. 

— I told the boy that his translation into French 
was creditable to him ; and some of the company 
wishing to hear what there was in the piece that 
made me smile, I turned it into English for them, as 
well as I could, on the spot. 

The landlady's daughter seemed to be much amused 
by the idea that a depilatory could take the place of 
literary and scientific accomplishments ; she wanted 
me to print the piece, so that she might send a copy 
of it to her cousin in Mizzourah ; she didn 't think 
he 'd have to do anything to the outside of his head 
to get into any of the societies ; he had to wear a 
wig once, when he played a part in a tabullo. 

No, — said I, — I shouldn 't think of printing that 
in English. I '11 tell you why. As soon as you get 
a few thousand people together in a town, there is 
somebody that every sharp thing you say is sure to 
hit. What if a thing was written in Paris or in Pekin? 



138 THE AUTOCRAT 

— that makes no difference. Everybody in those 
cities, or almost everybody, has his counterpart here, 
and in all large places. — You never studied averages 
as I have had occasion to. 

I '11 tell you how I came to know so much about 
averages. There was one season when I was lectur- 
ing, commonly, five evenings in the week, through 
most of the lecturing period. I soon found, as most 
speakers do, that it was pleasanter to work one lecture 
than to keep several in hand. 

— Don't you get sick to death of one lecture? — 
said the landlady's daughter, — who had a new dress 
on that day, and was in spirits for conversation. 

I was going to talk about averages, — I said, — but 
I have no objection to telling you about lectures, to 
begin with. 

A new lecture always has a certain excitement con- 
nected with its delivery. One thinks well of it, as 
of most things fresh from his mind. After a few de- 
liveries of it, one gets tired and then disgusted with 
its repetition. Go on delivering it, and the disgust 
passes off, until, after one has repeated it a hundred or 
a hundred and fifty times, he rather enjoys the hun- 
dred and first or hundred and fifty-first time before 
a new audience. But this is on one condition, — that 
he never lays the lecture down and lets it cool. If he 
does, there comes on a loathing for it which is intense, 
so that the sight of the old battered manuscript is as 
bad as sea-sickness. 

A new lecture is just like any other new tool. We 
use it for a while with pleasure. Then it blisters our 
hands, and we hate to touch it. By and by our hands 
get callous, and then we have no longer any sensi- 
tiveness about it. But if we give it up, the calluses 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 39 

disappear ; and if we meddle with it again, we miss 
the novelty and get the blisters. — The story is often 
quoted of Whitefield, that he said a sermon was good 
for nothing until it had been preached forty times. 
A lecture does n't begin to be old until it has passed its 
hundredth delivery ; and some, I think, have doubled, 
if not quadrupled, that number. These old lectures 
are a man's best, commonly ; they improve by age, 
also, — like the pipes, fiddles, and poems I told you 
of the other day. One learns to make the most of 
their strong points and to carry off their weak ones, 
— to take out the really good things which don't tell 
on the audience, and put in cheaper things that do. 
All this degrades him, of course, but it improves 
the lecture for general delivery. A thoroughly pop- 
ular lecture ought to have nothing in it which five 
hundred people cannot all take in a flash, just as it is 
uttered. 

— No, indeed, — I should be very sorry to say any- 
thing disrespectful of audiences. I have been kindly 
treated by a great many, and may occasionally face 
one hereafter. But I tell you the average intellect 
of five hundred persons, taken as they come, is not 
very high. It may be sound and safe, so far as it 
goes, but it is not very rapid or profound. A lecture 
ought to be something which all can understand, 
about something which interests everybody. I think, 
that, if any experienced lecturer gives you a different 
account from this, it will probably be one of those 
eloquent or forcible speakers who hold an audience 
by the charm of their manner, whatever they talk 
about, — even when they don't talk very well. 

But an average, which was what I meant to speak 
about, is one of the most extraordinary subjects of 



140 THE AUTOCRAT 

observation and study. It is awful in its uniformity, 
in its automatic necessity of action. Two communi- 
ties of ants or bees are exactly alike in all their ac- 
tions, so far as we can see. Two lyceum assemblies, 
of five hundred each, are so nearly alike, that they are 
absolutely undistinguishable in many cases by any 
definite mark, and there is nothing but the place and 
time by which one can tell the " remarkably intelli- 
gent audience " of a town in New York or Ohio from 
one in any New England town of similar size. Of 
course, if any principle of selection has come in, as in 
those special associations of young men which are 
common in cities, it deranges the uniformity of the 
assemblage. But let there be no such interfering cir- 
cumstances, and one knows pretty well even the look 
the audience will have, before he goes in. Front 
seats : a few old folks, — shiny-headed, — slant up 
best ear towards the speaker, — drop off asleep after 
a while, when the air begins to get a little narcotic 
with carbonic acid. Bright women's faces, young and 
middle-aged, a little behind these, but towards the 
front — (pick out the best, and lecture mainly to that). 
Here and there a countenance, sharp and scholarlike, 
and a dozen pretty female ones sprinkled about. An 
indefinite number of pairs of young people, — happy, 
but not always very attentive. Boys, in the back- 
ground, more or less quiet. Dull faces here, there, — 
in how many places ! I don't say dull people, but 
faces without a ray of sympathy or a movement of ex- 
pression. They are what kill the lecturer. These 
negative faces with their vacuous eyes and stony linea- 
ments pump and suck the warm soul out of him ; — 
that. is the chief reason why lecturers grow so pale 
before the season is over. They render latent any 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 141 

amount of vital caloric ; they act on our minds as 
those cold-blooded creatures I was talking about act 
on our heart. 

Out of all these inevitable elements the audience is 
generated, — a great compound vertebrate, as much 
like fifty others you have seen as any two mammals 
of the same species are like each other. Each audi- 
ence laughs, and each cries, in just the same places 
of your lecture ; that is, if you make one laugh or cry, 
you make all. Even those little indescribable move- 
ments which a lecturer takes cognizance of, just as a 
driver notices his horse's cocking his ears, are sure to 
come in exactly the same place of your lecture always. 
I declare to you, that, as the monk said about the 
picture in the convent, — that he sometimes thought 
the living tenants were the shadows, and the painted 
figures the realities, — I have sometimes felt as if I 
were a wandering spirit, and this great unchanging 
multivertebrate which I faced night after night was 
one ever-listening animal, which writhed along after 
me wherever I fled, and coiled at my feet every even- 
ing, turning up to me the same sleepless eyes which I 
thought I had closed with my last drowsy incantation! 

— Oh, yes! A thousand kindly and courteous acts, 
— a thousand faces that melted individually out of 
my recollection as the April snow melts, but only to 
steal away and find the beds of flowers whose roots 
are memory, but which blossom in poetry and dreams. 
I am not ungrateful, nor unconscious of all the good 
feeling and intelligence everywhere to be met with 
through the vast parish to which the lecturer minis- 
ters. But when I set forth, leading a string of my 
mind's daughters to market, as the country-folk fetch 
in their strings of horses — Pardon me, that was a 



142 THE AUTOCRAT 

coarse fellow who sneered at the sympathy wasted on 
an unhappy lecturer, as if, because he was decently 
paid for his services, he had therefore sold his sensi- 
bilities. — Family men get dreadfully homesick. In 
the remote and bleak village the heart returns to the 
red blaze of the logs in one's fireplace at home. 

"There are his young barbarians all at play," — 

if he owns any youthful savages. — No, the world has 
a million roosts for a man, but only one nest. 

— It is a fine thing to be an oracle to which an 
appeal is always made in all discussions. The men 
of facts wait their turn in grim silence, with that slight 
tension about the nostrils which the consciousness 
of carrying a " settler " in the form of a fact or a re- 
volver gives the individual thus armed. When a per- 
son is really full of information, and does not abuse it 
to Crush conversation, his part is to that of the real 
talkers what the instrumental accompaniment is in a 
trio or quartette of vocalists. 

— What do I mean by the real talkers ? — Why, 
the people with fresh ideas, of course, and plenty of 
good warm words to dress them in. Facts always 
yield the place of honor, in conversation, to thoughts 
about facts ; but if a false note is uttered, down comes 
the finger on the key and the man of facts asserts his 
true dignity. I have known three of these men of 
facts, at least, who were always formidable, — and one 
of them was tyrannical. 

— Yes, a man sometimes makes a grand appear- 
ance on a particular occasion ; but these men knew 
something about almost everything, and never made 
mistakes. — He? Veneers in first-rate style. The 
mahogany scales off now and then in spots, and then 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 43 

you see the cheap light stuff. — I found very fine 

in conversational information, the other day when we 
were in company. The talk ran upon mountains. 
He was wonderfully well acquainted with the leading 
facts about the Andes, the Apennines, and the Ap- 
palachians ; he had nothing in particular to say about 
Ararat, Ben Nevis, and various other mountains that 
were mentioned. By-and-by some Revolutionary 
anecdote came up, and he showed singular familiarity 
with the lives of the Adamses, and gave many details 
relating to Major Andre. A point of Natural His- 
tory being suggested, he gave an excellent account of 
the air-bladder of fishes. He was very full upon the 
subject of agriculture, but retired from the conversa- 
tion when horticulture was introduced in the discus- 
sion. So he seemed well acquainted with the geology 
of anthracite, but did not pretend to know anything 
of other kinds of coal. There was something so odd 
about the extent and limitations of his knowledge, 
that I suspected all at once what might be the mean- 
ing of it, and waited till I got an opportunity. — Have 
you seen the " New American Cyclopaedia " ? said I. 

— I have, he replied ; I received an early copy. — 
How far does it go ? — He turned red, and answered, 

— To Araguay. — Oh, said I to myself, — not quite 
so far as Ararat ; — that is the reason he knew nothing 
about it ; but he must have read all the rest straight 
through, and, if he can remember what is in this vol- 
ume until he has read all those that are to come, he 
will know more than I ever thought he would. 

Since I had this experience, I hear that somebody 
else has related a similar story. I did n't borrow it, 
for all that. — I made a comparison at table some 
time since, which has often been quoted and received 



144 THE AUTOCRAT 

many compliments. It was that of the mind of a 
bigot to the pupil of the eye ; the more light you pour 
on it, the more it contracts. The simile is a very ob- 
vious, and, I suppose I may now say, a happy one ; 
for it has just been shown me that it occurs in a Pref- 
ace to certain Political Poems of Thomas Moore's 
published long before my remark was repeated. When 
a person of fair character for literary honesty uses an 
image such as another has employed before him, the 
presumption is, that he has struck upon it independ- 
ently, or unconsciously recalled it, supposing it his own. 

It is impossible to tell, in a great many cases, 
whether a comparison which suddenly suggests itself 
is a new conception or a recollection. I told you the 
other day that I never wrote a line of verse that 
seemed to me comparatively good, but it appeared 
old at once, and often as if it had been borrowed. 
But I confess I never suspected the above compari- 
son of being old, except from the fact of its obvious- 
ness. It is proper, however, that I proceed by a 
formal instrument to relinquish all claim to any prop- 
erty in an idea given to the world at about the time 
when I had just joined the class in which Master 
Thomas Moore was then a somewhat advanced 
scholar. 

I therefore, in full possession of my native honesty, 
but knowing the liability of all men to be elected to 
public office, and for that reason feeling uncertain 
how soon I may be in danger of losing it, do hereby 
renounce all claim to being considered the first per- 
son who gave utterance to a certain simile or compari- 
son referred to in the accompanying documents, and 
relating to the pupil of the eye on the one part and the 
mind of the bigot on the other. I hereby relinquish 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 145 

all glory and profit, and especially all claims to letters 
from autograph collectors, founded upon my sup- 
posed property in the above comparison, — knowing 
Well, that, according to the laws of literature, they 
who speak first hold the fee of the thing said. I do 
also agree that all Editors of Cyclopedias and Bio- 
graphical Dictionaries, all Publishers of Reviews and 
Papers, and all Critics writing therein, shall be at 
liberty to retract or qualify any opinion predicated on 
the supposition that I was the sole and undisputed 
author of the above comparison. But. inasmuch as 
I do affirm that the comparison aforesaid was uttered 
by me in the firm belief that it was new and wholly 
my own, and as I have good reason to think that I had 
never seen or heard it when first expressed by me, 
and as it is well known that different persons may in- 
dependently utter the same idea, — as is evinced by 
that familiar line from Donatus, — 

" Pereant illi qui ante nos nostra dixerunt," — 

now, therefore, I do request by this instrument that 
all well-disposed persons will abstain from asserting 
or implying that I am open to any accusation what- 
soever touching the said comparison, and, if they 
have so asserted or implied, that they will have the 
manliness forthwith to retract the same assertion or 
insinuation. 

I think few persons have a greater disgust for 
plagiarism than myself. If I had even suspected that 
the idea in question was borrowed, I should have dis- 
claimed originality, or mentioned the coincidence as 
I once did in a case where I had happened to hit on 
an idea of Swift's. — But what shall I do about these 



I46 THE AUTOCRAT 

verses I was going to read you ? I am afraid that 
half mankind would * accuse me of stealing their 
thoughts, if I printed them. I am convinced that sev- 
eral of you, especially if you are getting a little on in 
life, will recognize some of these sentiments as having 
passed through your consciousness at some time. I 
can't help it, — it is too late now. The verses are 
written, and you must have them. Listen, then, and 
you shall hear 

WHAT WE ALL THINK. 
That age was older once than now, 

In spite of locks untimely shed, 
Or silvered on the youthful brow; 

That babes make love and children wed. 

That sunshine had a heavenly glow, 

Which faded with those " good old days," 

When winters came with deeper snow, 
And autumns with a softer haze. 

That — mother, sister, wife, or child — 
The " best of women " each has known. 

Were schoolboys ever half so wild ? 

How young the grandpapas have grown, 

That but for this our souls were free, 
And but for that our lives were blest ; 

That in some season yet to be' 

Our cares will leave us time to rest. 

Whene'er we groan with ache or pain, 
Some common ailment of the race, — 

Though doctors think the matter plain, — 
That ours is " a peculiar case." 

That when like babes with fingers burned 

We count one bitter maxim more, 
Our lesson all the world has learned, , 

And men are wiser than before. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 47 

That when we sob o'er fancied woes, 

The angels hovering overhead 
Count every pitying drop that flows 

And love us for the tears we shed. 

That when we stand with tearless eye 

And turn the beggar from our door, 
They still approve us when we sigh, 

"Ah, had I but one thousand more!" 

That weakness smoothed the path of sin, 
In half the slips our youth has known ; 

And whatsoe'er its blame has been, 
That Mercy flowers on faults outgrown. 

Though temples crowd the crumbled brink 

O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, 
Their tablets bold with what we thifik, 

Their echoes dumb to what we know ; 

That one unquestioned text we read, 

All doubt beyond, all fear above, 
Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed 

Can burn or blot it : God IS Love ! 



VII. 

[This particular record is noteworthy principally 
for containing a paper by my friend, the Professor, 
with a poem or two annexed or intercalated. I 
would suggest to young persons that they should 
pass over it for the present, and read, instead of it, 
that story about the young man who was in love with 
the young lady, and in great trouble for something 
like nine pages, but happily married on the tenth 
page or thereabouts, which, I take it for granted, will 
be contained in the periodical where this is found, 
unless it differ from all other publications of the 
kind. Perhaps, if such young people will lay the 
number aside, and take it up ten years, or a little 
more, from the present time, they may find some- 
thing in it for their advantage. They can't possibly 
understand it all now.] 

My friend, the Professor, began talking with me 
one day in a dreary sort of way. I couldn't get at 
the difficulty for a good while, but at last it turned 
out that somebody had been calling him an old man. 
— He didn't mind his students calling him the old 
man, he said. That was a technical expression, and 
he thought that he remembered hearing it applied to 
himself when he was about twenty-five. It may be 
considered as a familiar and sometimes endearing 
appellation. An Irishwoman calls her husband "the 
old man," and he returns the caressing expression by 
speaking of her as "the old woman." But now, said 
148 



A UTOCRA T OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 149 

he, just suppose a case like one of these. A young 
stranger is overheard talking of you as a very nice 
old gentleman. A friendly and genial critic speaks 
of your green old age as illustrating the truth of 
some axiom you had uttered with reference to that 
period of life. What / call an old man is a person 
with a smooth, shining crown and a fringe of scat- 
tered white hairs, seen in the streets on sunshiny 
days, stooping as he walks, bearing a cane, moving 
cautiously and slowly ; telling old stories, smiling at 
present follies, living in a narrow world of dry habits ; 
one that remains waking when others have dropped 
asleep, and keeps a little night-lamp-flame of life 
burning year after year, if the lamp is not upset, and 
there is only a careful hand held round it to pre- 
vent the puffs of wind from blowing the flame out. 
That 's what I call an old man. 

Now, said the Professor, you don't mean to tell me 
that I have got to that yet ? Why, bless you, I am 
several years short of the time when — [I knew what 
was coming, and could hardly keep from laughing ; 
twenty years ago he used to quote it as one of those 
absurd speeches men of genius will make, and now 
he is going to argue from it] — several years short of 
the time when Balzac says that men are — most — 
you know — dangerous to — the hearts of — in short, 
most to be dreaded by duennas that have charge of 
susceptible females, — What age is that? said I, 
statistically. — Fifty-two years, answered the Profes- 
sor. — Balzac ought to know, said I, if it is true that 
Goethe said of him that each of his stories must have 
been dug out of a woman's heart. But fifty-two is 
a high figure. 

Stand in the light of the window, Professor, said I. 



150 THE AUTOCRAT 

— The Professor took up the desired position. — 
You have white hairs, I said. — Had 'era any time 
these twenty years, said the Professor. — And the 
crow's-foot, — pes anserinus, rather. — The Professor 
smiled, as I wanted him to, and the folds radiated 
like the ridges of a half-opened fan, from the outer 
corner of the eyes to the temples. — And the calipers, 
said I. — What are the calipers? he asked, curiously 

— Why, the parenthesis, said I. — Parenthesis? said 
the Professor ; what 's that ? — Why, look in the glass 
when you are disposed to laugh, and see if your mouth 
is n't framed in a couple of crescent lines, — so, my 
boy ( ) . — It 's all nonsense, said the Professor ; just 
look at my biceps ; — and he began pulling off his coat 
to show me his arm. Be careful, said I ; you can't 
bear exposure to the air, at your time of life, as you 
could once. — I will box with you, said the Professor, 
row with you, walk with you, ride with you, swim 
with you, or sit at table with you, for fifty dollars a 
side. — Pluck survives stamina, I answered. 

The Professor went off a little out of humor. A 
few weeks afterwards he came in, looking very good- 
natured, and brought me a paper, which I have here, 
and from which I shall read you some portions, if 
you don't object. He had been thinking the matter 
over, he said, — had read Cicero " De Senectute," 
and made up his mind to meet old age half way. 
These were some of his reflections that he had written 
down : so here you have 

THE PROFESSOR'S PAPER. 

There is no doubt when old age begins. The 
human body is a furnace which keeps in blast three- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 151 

score years and ten, more or less. It burns about 
three hundred pounds of carbon a year, (besides 
other fuel,) when in fair working order, according 
to a great chemist's estimate. When the fire slackens, 
life declines ; when it goes out, we are dead. 

It has been shown by some noted French experi- 
menters, that the amount of combustion increases up 
to about the thirtieth year, remains stationary to 
about forty-five, and then diminishes. This last is 
the point where old age starts from. The great fact 
of physical life is the perpetual commerce with the 
elements, and the fire is the measure of it. 

About this time of life, if food is plenty where you 
live, — for that, you know, regulates matrimony, — 
you may be expecting to find yourself a grandfather 
some fine morning ; a kind of domestic felicity that 
gives one a cool shiver of delight to think of, as 
among the not remotely possible events. 

I don't mind much those slipshod lines Dr. John- 
son wrote to Thrale, telling her about life's declining 
from thirty-five ; the furnace is in full blast for ten 
years longer, as I have said. The Romans came very 
near the mark ; their age of enlistment reached from 
seventeen to forty-six years. 

What is the use of fighting against the seasons, or 
the tides, or the movements of the planetary bodies, 
or this ebb in the wave of life that flows through us ? 
We are old fellows from the moment the fire begins 
to go out. Let us always behave like gentlemen 
when we are introduced to new acquaintance. 

Incipit Allegoria Senectutis. 

Old Age, this is Mr. Professor ; Mr. Professor, this 
is Old Age. 



152 THE AUTOCRAT 

Old Age. — Mr. Professor, I hope to see you well. 
I have known you for some time, though I think you 
did not know me. Shall we walk down the street 
together? 

Professor (drawing back a little) . — We can talk 
more quietly, perhaps, in my study. Will you tell 
me how it is you seem to be acquainted with every- 
body you are introduced to, though he evidently 
considers you an entire stranger? 

Old Age. — I make it a rule never to force myself 
upon a person's recognition until I have known him 
at least Jive year s . 

Professor. — Do you mean to say that you have 
known me so long as that ? 

Old Age. — I do. I left my card on you longer 
ago than that, but I am afraid you never read it ; yet 
I see you have it with you. 

Professor. — Where ? 

Old Age. — There, between your eyebrows, — three 
straight lines running up and down ; all the probate 
courts know that token, — "Old Age, his mark." 
Put your forefinger on the inner end of one eyebrow, 
and your middle finger on the inner end of the other 
eyebrow ; now separate the fingers, and you will 
smooth out my sign-manual ; that 's the way you 
used to look before I left my card on you. 

Professor. — What message do people generally 
send back when you first call on them ? 

Old Age. — Not at home. Then I leave a card and 
go. Next year I call; get the same answer; leave 
another card. So for five or six, — sometimes ten 
years or more. At last, if they don't let me in, I 
break in through the front door or the windows. 

We talked together in this way some time. Then 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 153 

Old Age said again, — Come, let us walk down the 
street together, — and offered me a cane, an eye- 
glass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes. — No, much 
obliged to you, said I. I don't want those things, 
and I had a little rather talk with you here, privately, 
in my study. So I dressed myself up in a jaunty way 
and walked out alone ; — got a fall, caught a cold, was 
laid up with a lumbago, and had time to think over 
this whole matter. 

Explicit Allegoria Senectutis. 

We have settled when old age begins. Like all 
Nature's processes, it is gentle and gradual in its 
approaches, strewed with illusions, and all its little 
griefs soothed by natural sedatives. But the iron 
hand is not less irresistible because it wears the 
velvet glove. The button-wood throws off its bark 
in large flakes, which one may find lying at its foot, 
pushed out, and at last pushed off, by that tranquil 
movement from beneath, which is too slow to be 
seen, but too powerful to be arrested. One finds 
them always, but one rarely sees them fall. So it is 
our youth drops from us, — scales off, sapless and 
lifeless, and lays bare the tender and immature fresh 
growth of old age. Looked at collectively, the changes 
of old age appear as a series of personal insults and 
indignities, terminating at last in death, which Sir 
Thomas Browne has called "the very disgrace and 
ignominy of our natures." 

My lady's cheek can boast no more 
The cranberry white and pink it wore ; 
And where her shining locks divide, 
The parting line is all too wide — 



154 THE AUTOCRAT 

No, no, — this will never do. Talk about men, if you 
will, but spare the poor women. 

We have a brief description of seven stages of life 
by a remarkably good observer. It is very presump- 
tuous to attempt to add to it, yet I have been struck 
with the fact that life admits of a natural analysis into 
no less than fifteen distinct periods. Taking the five 
primary divisions, infancy, childhood, youth, man- 
hood, old age, each of these has its own three periods 
of immaturity, complete development, and decline. 
I recognize an old baby at once, — with its " pipe and 
mug," (a stick of candy and a porringer,) — so does 
everybody ; and an old child shedding its milk-teeth 
is only a little prototype of the old man shedding his 
permanent ones. Fifty or thereabouts is only the 
childhood, as it were, of old age ; the graybeard 
youngster must be weaned from his late suppers now. 
So you will see that you have to make fifteen stages 
at any rate, and that it would not be hard to make 
twenty-five ; five primary, each with five secondary 
divisions. 

The infancy and childhood of commencing old age 
have the same ingenuous simplicity and delightful 
unconsciousness about them as the first stage of the 
earlier periods of life shows. The great delusion of 
mankind is in supposing that to be individual and 
exceptional which is universal and according to law. 
A person is always startled when he hears himself 
seriously called an old man for the first time. 

Nature gets us out of youth into manhood, as 
sailors are hurried on board of vessels, — in a state 
of intoxication. We are hustled into maturity reeling 
with our passions and imaginations, and we have 
drifted far away from port before we awake out of 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. I 55 

our illusions. But to carry us out of maturity into 
old age, without our knowing where we are going, 
she drugs us with strong opiates, and so we stagger 
along with wide open eyes that see nothing until snow 
enough has fallen on our heads to rouse our comatose 
brains out of their stupid trances. 

There is one mark of age that strikes me more 
than any of the physical ones ; — I mean the forma- 
tion of Habits. An old man who shrinks into him- 
self falls into ways that become as positive and as 
much beyond the reach of outside influences as if 
they were governed by clock-work. The ani?nal 
functions, as the physiologists call them, in distinc- 
tion from the organic, tend, in the process of de- 
terioration to which age and neglect united gradually 
lead them, to assume the periodical or rhythmical 
type of movement. Every man's heart (this organ 
belongs, you know, to the organic system) has a 
regular mode of action ; but I know a great many 
men whose brains, and all their voluntary existence 
flowing from their brains, have a systole and diastole 
as regular as that of the heart itself. Habit is the 
approximation of the animal system to the organic. 
It is a confession of failure in the highest function of 
being, which involves a perpetual self-determination, 
in full view of all existing circumstances. But habit, 
you see, is an action in present circumstances from 
past motives. It is substituting a vis a tergo for the 
evolution of living force. 

When a man, instead of burning up three hundred 
pounds of carbon a year, has got down to two hun- 
dred and fifty, it is plain enough he must economize 
force somewhere. Now habit is a labor-saving inven- 
tion which enables a man to get along with less fuel, 



156 THE AUTOCRAT 

— that is all ; for fuel is force, you know, just as much 
in the page I am writing for you as in the locomotive 
or the legs that carry it to you. Carbon is the same 
thing, whether you call it wood, or coal, or bread and 
cheese. A reverend gentleman demurred to this 
statement, — as if, because combustion is asserted to 
be the sine qua non of thought, therefore thought is 
alleged to be a purely chemical process. Facts of 
chemistry are one thing, I told him, and facts of con- 
sciousness another. It can be proved to him, by a 
very simple analysis of some of his spare elements, 
that every Sunday, when he does his duty faithfully, 
he uses up more phosphorus out of his brain and 
nerves than on ordinary days. But then he had his 
choice whether to do his duty, or to neglect it, and 
save his phosphorus and other combustibles. 

It follows from all this that the formation of habits 
ought naturally to be, as it is, the special character- 
istic of age. As for the muscular powers, they pass 
their maximum long before the time when the true 
decline of life begins, if we may judge by the expe- 
rience of the ring. A man is "stale," I think, in 
their language, soon after thirty, — often, no doubt, 
much earlier, as gentlemen of the pugilistic profes- 
sion are exceedingly apt to keep their vital fire burn- 
ing with the blower up. 

— So far without Tully. But in the mean time I 
have been reading the treatise, " De Senectute." It 
is not long, but a leisurely performance. The old 
gentleman was sixty-three years of age when he 
addressed it to his friend T. Pomponius Atticus, 
Eq., a person of distinction, some two or three years 
older. We read it when we are schoolboys, forget 
all about it for thirty years, and then take it up 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 57 

again by a natural instinct, — provided always that 
we read Latin as we drink water, without stopping to 
taste it, as all of us who ever learned it at school or 
college ought to do. 

Cato is the chief speaker in the dialogue. A good 
deal of it is what would be called in vulgar phrase 
" slow." It unpacks and unfolds incidental illustra- 
tions which a modern writer would look at the back 
of, and toss each to its pigeon-hole. I think ancient 
classics and ancient people are alike in the tendency 
to this kind of expansion. 

An old doctor came to me once (this is literal fact) 
with some contrivance or other for people with broken 
kneepans. As the patient would be confined for a 
good while, he might find it dull work to sit with his 
hands in his lap. Reading, the ingenious inventor 
suggested, would be an agreeable mode of passing 
the time. He mentioned, in his written account of 
his contrivance, various works that might amuse the 
weary hour. I remember only three, — Don Quixote, 
Tom Jones, and Watts on the Mind. 

It is not generally understood that Cicero's essay 
was delivered as a lyceum lecture, (concio popularis^) 
at the Temple of Mercury. The journals {papyri) 
of the day (" Tempora Quotidiana," — " Tribunus 
Quirinalis," — " Praeco Romanus," and the rest) gave 
abstracts of it, one of which I have translated and 
modernized, as being a substitute for the analysis I 
intended to make. 

IV. Kal. Mart 

The lecture at the Temple of Mercury, last evening, 
was well attended by the elite of our great city. Two 
hundred thousand sestertia were thought to have been 
represented in the house. The doors were besieged 



158 THE AUTOCRAT 

by a mob of shabby fellows, {illotum vulgus^) who 
were at length quieted after two or three had been 
somewhat roughly handled {gladio jugulati) . The 
speaker was the well-known Mark Tully, Eq., — the 
subject Old Age. Mr. T. has a lean and scraggy 
person, with a very unpleasant excrescence upon his 
nasal feature, from which his nickname of chick-pea 
(Cicero) is said by some to be derived. As a lecturer 
is public property, we may remark, that his outer gar- 
ment {toga) was of cheap stuff and somewhat worn, 
and that his general style and appearance of dress 
and manner {habitus, vestitusque) were somewhat 
provincial. 

The lecture consisted of an imaginary dialogue be- 
tween Cato and Laelius. We found the first portion 
rather heavy, and retired a few moments for refresh- 
ment {pocula qucedain vini) . — All want to reach old 
age, says Cato, and grumble when they get it ; there- 
fore they are donkeys. — The lecturer will allow 
us to say that he is the donkey ; we know we shall 
grumble at old age, but we want to live through 
youth and manhood, in spite of the troubles we shall 
groan over. — There was considerable prosing as to 
what old age can do and can't. — True, but not new. 
Certainly, old folks can't jump, — break the necks of 
their thigh-bones, {feinorum cervices^) if they do ; 
can't crack nuts with their teeth ; can't climb a greased 
pole {malum inunctum scandere non possunf) ; but 
they can tell old stories and give you good advice ; if 
they know what you have made up your mind to do 
when you ask them. — All this is well enough, but 
won't set the Tiber on fire {Tiberim accendere nequa- 
quam potest) . 

There were some clever things enough, {dicta haud 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. I 59 

inepta^) a few of which are worth reporting. — Old 
people are accused of being forgetful ; but they never 
forget where they have put their money. — Nobody is 
so old he doesn't think he can live a year. — The 
lecturer quoted an ancient maxim, — Grow old early, 
if you would be old long, — but disputed it. — Author- 
ity, he thought, was the chief privilege of age — It is 
not great to have money, but fine to govern those 
that have it. — Old age begins at forty -six years, ac- 
cording to the common opinion. — It is not every 
kind of old age or of wine that grows sour with time. 
— Some excellent remarks were made on immortality, 
but mainly borrowed from and credited to Plato. — 
Several pleasing anecdotes were told. — Old Milo, 
champion of the heavy weights in his day, looked at 
his arms and whimpered, " They are dead. 1 ' Not so 
dead as you, you old fool, — says Cato ; — you never 
were good for anything but for your shoulders and 
flanks. — Pisistratus asked Solon what made him dare 
to be so obstinate. Old age, said Solon. 

The lecture was on the whole acceptable, and a 
credit to our culture and civilization. — The reporter 
goes on to state that there will be no lecture next 
week, on account of the expected combat between 
the bear and the barbarian. Betting (sponsio) two 
to one {duo ad unum) on the bear. 

— After all, the most encouraging things I find in 
the treatise, " De Senectute," are the stories of men 
who have found new occupations when growing old, 
or kept up their common pursuits in the extreme 
period of life. Cato learned Greek when he was old, 
and speaks of wishing to learn the fiddle, or some 
such instrument, {fidibus^) after the example of So- 



l6o THE AUTOCRAT 

crates. Solon learned something new, every day, in 
his old age, as he gloried to proclaim. Cyrus pointed 
out with pride and pleasure the trees he had planted 
with his own hand. [I remember a pillar on the 
Duke of Northumberland's estate at Alnwick, with an 
inscription in similar words, if not the same. That, 
like other country pleasures, never wears out. None 
is too rich, none too poor, none too young, none too 
old to enjoy it.] There is a New England story I 
have heard more to the point, however, than any of 
Cicero's. A young farmer was urged to set out some 
apple-trees. — No, said he, they are too long grow- 
ing, and I don't want to plant for other people. The 
young farmer's father was spoken to about it, but he, 
with better reason, alleged that apple-trees were slow 
and life was fleeting. At last some one mentioned it 
to the old grandfather of the young farmer. He had 
nothing else to do — so he stuck in some trees. He 
lived long enough to drink barrels of cider made from 
the apples that grew on those trees. 

As for myself, after visiting a friend lately, — [Do 
remember all the time that this is the Professor's paper.] 
— I satisfied myself that I had better concede the fact 
that — my contemporaries are not so young as they 
have been, — and that, — awkward as it is, — science 
and history agree in telling me that I can claim the 
immunities and must own the humiliations of the 
early stage of senility. Ah ! but we have all gone 
down the hill together. The dandies of my time have 
split their waistbands and taken to high-low shoes. 
The beauties of my recollections — where are they ? 
They have run the gantlet of the years as well as I. 
First the years pelted them with red roses till their 
cheeks were all on fire. By-and-by they began throwing 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. l6l 

white roses, and that morning flush passed away. 
At last one of the years threw a snow-ball, and after 
that no year let the poor girls pass without throwing 
snow-balls. And then came rougher missiles, — ice 
and stones ; and from time to time an arrow whistled, 
and down went one of the poor girls. So there are 
but few left; and we don't call those few girls, 
but — 

Ah, me ! here am I groaning just as the old Greek 
sighed At at / and the old Roman, Eheu ! I have no 
doubt we should die of shame and grief at the in- 
dignities offered us by age, if it were not that we see 
so many others as badly or worse off than ourselves. 
We always compare ourselves with our contempo- 
raries. 

[I was interrupted in my reading just here. Before 
I began at the next breakfast, I read them these 
verses ; — I hope you will like them, and get a useful 
lesson from them.] 

THE LAST BLOSSOM. 

THOUGH young no more, we still would dream 

Of beauty's dear deluding wiles ; 
The leagues of life to graybeards seem 

Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles. 

Who knows a woman's wild caprice ? 

It played with Goethe's silvered hair, 
And many a Holy Father's " niece " 

Has softly smoothed the papal chair. 

When sixty bids us sigh in vain 

To melt the heart of sweet sixteen, 
We think upon those ladies twain 

Who loved so well the tough old Dean. 



1 62 THE AUTOCRAT 

We see the Patriarch's wintry face, 
The maid of Egypt's dusky glow, 

And dream that Youth and Age embrace, 
As April violets fill with snow. 

Tranced in her Lord's Olympian smile 
His lotus-loving Memphian lies, — 

The musky daughter of the Nile 
With plaited hair and almond eyes. 

Might we but share one wild caress 
Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall, 

And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress 
The long cold kiss that waits us all ! 

My bosom heaves, remembering yet 
The morning of that blissful day 

When Rose, the flower of spring, I met, 
And gave my raptured soul away. 

Flung from her eyes of purest blue, 
A lasso, with its leaping chain 

Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew 
O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain. 

Thou com'st to cheer my waning age, 
Sweet vision, waited for so long ! 

Dove that would seek the poet's cage 
Lured by the magic breath of song ! 

She blushes ! Ah, reluctant maid, 

Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told ! 

O'er girlhood's yielding barricade 
Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold ! 

Come to my arms ! — love heeds not years ; 

No frost the bud of passion knows. — 
Ha ! what is this my frenzy hears? 

A voice behind me uttered, — Rose ! 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 63 

Sweet was her smile, — but not for me ; 

Alas, when woman looks too kind, 
Just turn your foolish head and see, — 

Some youth is walking close behind ! 

As to giving up, because the almanac or the Family 
Bible says that it is about time to do it, I have no 
intention of doing any such thing. I grant you that 
I burn less carbon than some years ago. I see peo- 
ple of my standing really good for nothing, decrepit, 
effete, la levre infer ienre deja pendant e, with what 
little life they have left mainly concentrated in their 
epigastrium. But as the disease of old age is epi- 
demic, endemic, and sporadic, and everybody that 
lives long enough is sure to catch it, I am going to 
say, for the encouragement of such as need it, how I 
treat the malady in my own case. 

First. As I feel, that, when I have anything to do, 
there is less time for it than when I was younger, I 
find that I give my attention more thoroughly, and 
use my time more economically than ever before ; so 
that I can learn anything twice as easily as in my 
earlier days. I am not, therefore, afraid to attack a 
new study. I took up a difficult language a very 
few years ago with good success, and think of mathe- 
matics and metaphysics by-and-by. 

Secondly. I have opened my eyes to a good many 
neglected privileges and pleasures within my reach, 
and requiring only a little courage to enjoy them. 
You may well suppose it pleased me to find that old 
Cato was thinking of learning to play the fiddle, when 
I had deliberately taken it up in my old age, and satis- 
fied myself that I could get much comfort, if not much 
music, out of it. 

Thirdly. I have found that some of those active 



164 THE AUTOCRAT 

exercises, which are commonly thought to belong to 
young folks only, may be enjoyed at a much later 
period. 

A young friend has lately written an admirable 
article in one of the journals, entitled, " Saints and 
their Bodies." Approving of his general doctrines, 
and grateful for his records of personal experience, I 
cannot refuse to add my own experimental confirm- 
ation of his eulogy of one particular form of active 
exercise and amusement, namely, boating. For the 
past nine years, I have rowed about, during a good 
part of the summer, on fresh or salt water. My 
present fleet on the river Charles consists of three 
row-boats. i. A small flat-bottomed skiff of the 
shape of a flat-iron, kept mainly to lend to boys. 
2. A fancy "dory" for two pairs of sculls, in which I 
sometimes go out with my young folks. 3. My own 
particular water-sulky, a " skeleton " or " shell " race- 
boat, twenty-two feet long, with huge outriggers, 
which boat I pull with ten-foot sculls, — alone, of 
course, as it holds but one, and tips him out, if he 
does n't mind what he is about. In this I glide 
around the Back Bay, down the stream, up the 
Charles to Cambridge and Watertown, up the Mys- 
tic, round the wharves, in the wake of steamboats, 
which leave a swell after them delightful to rock 
upon ; I linger under the bridges, — those "caterpillar 
bridges," as my brother professor so happily called 
them ; rub against the black sides of old wood- 
schooners ; cool down under the overhanging stern 
of some tall Indiaman ; stretch across to the Navy- 
Yard, where the sentinel warns me off from the 
Ohio, — just as if I should hurt her by lying in her 
shadow ; then strike out into the harbor, where the 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 65 

water gets clear and the air smells of the ocean, — 
till all at once I remember, that, if a west wind blows 
up of a sudden, I shall drift along past the islands, 
out of sight of the dear old State-house, — plate, 
tumbler, knife and fork all waiting at home, but no 
chair drawn up at the table, — all the dear people 
waiting, waiting, waiting, while the boat is sliding, 
sliding, sliding into the great desert, where there is 
no tree and no fountain. As I don't want my wreck 
to be washed up on one of the beaches in company 
with deviPs-aprons, bladder-weeds, dead horse-shoes, 
and bleached crab-shells, I turn about and flap my 
long, narrow wings for home. When the tide is run- 
ning out swiftly, I have a splendid fight to get through 
the bridges, but always make it a rule to beat, — 
though I have been jammed up into pretty tight 
places at times, and was caught once between a vessel 
swinging round and the pier, until our bones (the 
boat's, that is) cracked as if we had been in the jaws 
of Behemoth. Then back to my moorings at the 
foot of the Common, off with the rowing-dress, dash 
under the green translucent wave, return to the garb of 
civilization, walk through my Garden, take a look at 
my elms on the Common, and, reaching my habitat, 
in consideration of my advanced period of life, indulge 
in the Elysian abandonment of a huge recumbent 
chair. 

When I have established a pair of well-pronounced 
feathering-calluses on my thumbs, when I am in 
training so that I can do my fifteen miles at a stretch 
without coming to grief in any way, when I can per- 
form my mile in eight minutes or a little less, then I 
feel as if I had old Time's head in chancery, and 
could give it to him at my leisure. 



1 66 THE AUTOCRAT 

I do not deny the attraction of walking. I have 
bored this ancient city through and through in my 
daily travels, until I know it as an old inhabitant of a 
Cheshire knows his cheese. Why, it was I who, in 
the course of these rambles, discovered that remark- 
able avenue called Myrtle Street, stretching in one 
long line from east of the Reservoir to a precipitous 
and rudely paved cliff which looks down on the grim 
abode of science, and beyond it to the far hills ; a 
promenade so delicious in its repose, so cheerfully 
varied with glimpses down the northern slope into 
busy Cambridge Street with its iron river of the horse- 
railroad, and wheeled barges gliding back and forward 
over it, — so delightfully closing at its western ex- 
tremity in sunny courts and passages where I know 
peace, and beauty, and virtue, and serene old age 
must be perpetual tenants, — so alluring to all who 
desire to take their daily stroll, in the words of Dr. 
Watts, — 

"Alike unknowing and unknown," — 

that nothing but a sense of duty would have prompted 
me to reveal the secret of its existence. I concede, 
therefore, that walking is an immeasurably fine inven- 
tion, of which old age ought constantly to avail itself. 
Saddle-leather is in some respects even preferable 
to sole-leather. The principal objection to it is of a 
financial character. But you may be sure that Bacon 
and Sydenham did not recommend it for nothing. 
One's hepar, or, in vulgar language, liver, — a pon- 
derous organ, weighing some three or four pounds, — 
goes up and down like the dasher of a churn in the 
midst of the other vital arrangements, at every step 
of a trotting horse. The brains also are shaken up 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 67 

like coppers in a money-box. Riding is good, for 
those that are born with a silver-mounted bridle in 
their hand, and can ride as much and as often as they 
like, without thinking all the time they hear that 
steady grinding sound as the horse's jaws triturate 
with calm lateral movement the bank-bills and prom- 
ises to pay upon which it is notorious that the profligate 
animal in question feeds day and night. 

Instead, however, of considering these kinds of exer- 
cise in this empirical way, I will devote a brief space to 
an examination of them in a more scientific form. 

The pleasure of exercise is due first to a purely 
physical impression, and secondly to a sense of power 
in action. The first source of pleasure varies of course 
with our condition and the state of the surrounding 
circumstances ; the second with the amount and kind 
of power, and the extent and kind of action. In all 
forms of active exercise there are three powers sim- 
ultaneously in action, — the will, the muscles, and the 
intellect. Each of these predominates in different 
kinds of exercise. In walking, the will and muscles 
are so accustomed to work together and perform their 
task with so little expenditure of force, that the intel- 
lect is left comparatively free. The mental pleasure 
in walking, as such, is in the sense of power over all 
our moving machinery. But in riding, I have the 
additional pleasure of governing another will, and my 
muscles extend to the tips of the animal's ears and 
to his four hoofs, instead of stopping at my hands 
and feet. Now in this extension of my volition and 
my physical frame into another animal, my tyrannical 
instincts and my desire for heroic strength are at 
once gratified. When the horse ceases to have a will 
of his own and his muscles require no special atten- 



1 68 THE AUTOCRAT 

tion on your part, then you may live on horseback as 
Wesley did, and write sermons or take naps, as you 
like. But you will observe, that, in riding on horse- 
back, you always have a feeling, that, after all, it is 
not you that do the work, but the animal, and this 
prevents the satisfaction from being complete. 

Now let us look at the conditions of rowing. I 
won't suppose you to be disgracing yourself in one 
of those miserable tubs, tugging in which is to rowing 
the true boat what riding a cow is to bestriding an 
Arab. You know the Esquimaux kayak, (if that is 
the name of it,) don't you? Look at that model of one 
over my door. Sharp, rather? — On the contrary, it 
is a lubber to the one you and I must haVe ; a Dutch 
fish-wife to Psyche, contrasted with what I will tell 
you about. — Our boat, then, is something of the 
shape of a pickerel, as you look down upon his back, 
he lying in the sunshine just where the sharp edge 
of the water cuts in among the lily-pads. It is a kind 
of a giant pod, as one may say, — tight everywhere, 
except in a little place in the middle, where you sit. 
Its length is from seven to ten yards, and as it is only 
from sixteen to thirty inches wide in its widest part, 
you understand why you want those "outriggers," or 
projecting iron frames with the rowlocks in which the 
oars play. My rowlocks are five feet apart ; double 
the greatest width of the boat. 

Here you are, then, afloat with a body a rod and a 
half long, with arms, or wings, as you may choose 
to call them, stretching more than twenty feet from 
tip to tip ; every volition of yours extending as per- 
fectly into them as if your spinal cord ran down the 
centre strip of your boat, and the nerves of your arms 
tingled as far as the broad blades of your oars, — - 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 69 

oars of spruce, balanced, leathered, and ringed under 
your own special direction. This, in sober earnest, 
is the nearest approach to flying that man has ever 
made or perhaps ever will make. As the hawk sails 
without flapping his pinions, so you drift with the 
tide when you will, in the most luxurious form of loco- 
motion indulged to an embodied spirit. But if your 
blood wants rousing, turn round that stake in the 
river, which you see a mile from here ; and when you 
come in in sixteen minutes, (if you do, for we are 
old boys, and not champion scullers, you remember,) 
then say if you begin to feel a little warmed up or 
not ! You can row easily and gently all day, and you 
can row yourself blind and black in the face in ten 
minutes, just as you like. It has been long agreed 
that there is no way in which a man can accomplish 
so much labor with his muscles as in rowing. It is 
in the boat, then, that man finds the largest extension 
of his volitional and muscular existence ; and yet he 
may tax both of them so slightly, in that most deli- 
cious of exercises, that he shall mentally write his ser- 
mon, or his poem, or recall the remarks he has made 
in company and put them in form for the public, as 
well as in his easy-chair. 

I dare not publicly name the rare joys, the infinite 
delights, that intoxicate me on some sweet June morn- 
ing, when the river and bay are smooth as a sheet 
of beryl-green silk, and I run along ripping it up 
with my knife-edged shell of a boat, the rent closing 
after me like those wounds of angels which Milton 
tells of, but the seam still shining for many a long 
rood behind me. To lie still over the Flats, where 
the waters are shallow, and see the crabs crawling 
and the sculpins gliding busily and silently beneath 



170 THE AUTOCRAT 

the boat, — to rustle in through the long harsh grass 
that leads up some tranquil creek, — to take shelter 
from the sunbeams under one of the thousand-footed 
bridges, and look down its interminable colonnades, 
crusted with green and oozy growths, studded with 
minute barnacles, and belted with rings of dark mus- 
cles, while overhead streams and thunders that other 
river whose every wave is a human soul flowing to 
eternity as the river below flows to the ocean, — 
lying there moored unseen, in loneliness so profound 
that the columns of Tadmor in the Desert could not 
seem more remote from life, — the cool breeze on 
one's forehead, the stream whispering against the half- 
sunken pillars, — why should I tell of these things, 
that I should live to see my beloved haunts invaded 
and the waves blackened with boats as with a swarm 
of water-beetles ? What a city of idiots we must be 
not to have covered this glorious bay with gondolas 
and wherries, as we have just learned to cover the ice 
in winter with skaters ! 

I am satisfied that such a set of black-coated, stiff- 
jointed, soft-muscled, paste-complexioned youth as 
we can boast in our Atlantic cities never before 
sprang from loins of Anglo-Saxon lineage. Of the 
females that are the mates of these males I do not 
here speak. I preached my sermon from the lay- 
pulpit on this matter a good while ago. Of course, 
if you heard it, you know my belief is that the total 
climatic influences here are getting up a number of 
new patterns of humanity, some of which are not an 
improvement on the old model. Clipper-built, sharp 
in the bows, long in the spars, slender to look at, and 
fast to go, the ship, which is the great organ of our 
national life of relation, is but a reproduction of the 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 171 

typical form which the elements impress upon its 
builder. All this we cannot help ; but we can make 
the best of these influences, such as they are. We 
have a few good boatmen, — no good horsemen that 
I hear of, — I cannot speak for cricketing, — but 
as for any great athletic feat performed by a gentle- 
man in these latitudes, society would drop a man 
who should run round the Common in five minutes. 
Some of our amateur fencers, single-stick players, and 
boxers, we have no reason to be ashamed of. Box- 
ing is rough play, but not too rough for a hearty young 
fellow. Anything is better than this white-blooded 
degeneration to which we all tend. 

I dropped into a gentleman's sparring exhibition 
only last evening. It did my heart good to see that 
there were a few young and youngish youths left who 
could take care of their own heads in case of emer- 
gency. It is a fine sight, that of a gentleman resolv- 
ing himself into the primitive constituents of his 
humanity. Here is a delicate young man now, with 
an intellectual countenance, a slight figure, a sub- 
pallid complexion, a most unassuming deportment, 
a mild adolescent in fact, that any Hiram or Jonathan 
from between the ploughtails would of course expect 
to handle with perfect ease. Oh, he is taking off his 
gold-bowed spectacles!' Ah, he is divesting himself 
of his cravat! Why, he is stripping off his coat! 
Well, here he is, sure enough, in a tight silk shirt, 
and with two things that look like batter puddings in 
the place of his fists. Now see that other fellow with 
another pair of batter puddings, — the big one with 
the broad shoulders ; he will certainly knock the 
little man's head off, if he strikes him. Feinting, 
dodging, stopping, hitting, countering, — little man's 



172 THE AUTOCRAT 

head not off yet. You might as well try to jump 
upon your own shadow as to hit the little man's in- 
tellectual features. He needn't have taken off the 
gold-bowed spectacles at all. Quick, cautious, shifty, 
nimble, cool, he catches all the fierce lunges or gets 
out of their reach, till his turn comes, and then, whack 
goes one of the batter puddings against the big one's 
ribs, and bang goes the other into the big one's face, 
and, staggering, shuffling, slipping, tripping, collaps- 
ing, sprawling, down goes the big one in a miscella- 
neous bundle. — If my young friend, whose excellent 
article I have referred to, could only introduce the 
manly art of self-defence among the clergy, I am 
satisfied that we would have better sermons and an 
infinitely less quarrelsome church-militant. A bout 
with the gloves would let off the ill-nature, and cure 
the indigestion, which, united, have embroiled their 
subject in a bitter controversy. We should then often 
hear that a point of difference between an infallible 
and a heretic, instead of being vehemently discussed 
in a series of newspaper articles, had been settled by 
a friendly contest in several rounds, at the close of 
which the parties shook hands and appeared cordially 
reconciled. 

But boxing you and I are too old for, I am afraid. 
I was for a moment tempted, by the contagion of 
muscular electricity last evening, to try the gloves 
with the Benicia Boy, who looked in as a friend to 
the noble art; but remembering that he had twice 
my weight and half my age, besides the advantage of 
his training, I sat still and said nothing. 

There is one other delicate point I wish to speak 
of with reference to old age. I refer to the use of 
dioptric media which correct the diminished refracting 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 73 

power of the humors of the eye, — in other words, 
spectacles. I don't use them. All I ask is a large, 
fair type, a strong daylight or gas-light, and one yard 
of focal distance, and my eyes are as good as ever. 
But if your eyes fail, I can tell you something en- 
couraging. There is now living in New York State 
an old gentleman who, perceiving his sight to fail, 
immediately took to exercising it on the finest print, 
and in this way fairly bullied Nature out of her foolish 
habit of taking liberties at flve-and-forty, or there- 
about. And now this old gentleman performs the 
most extraordinary feats with his pen, showing that 
his eyes must be a pair of microscopes. I should be 
afraid to say to you how much he writes in the compass 
of a half-dime, — whether the Psalms or the Gospels, 
or the Psalms and the Gospels, I won't be positive. 
But now let me tell you this. If the time comes 
when you must lay down the fiddle and the bow, 
because your fingers are too stiff, and drop the ten- 
foot sculls, because your arms are too weak, and, after 
dallying awhile with eye-glasses, come at last to the 
undisguised reality of spectacles, — if the time comes 
when that fire of life we spoke of has burned so low 
that where its flames reverberated there is only the 
sombre stain of regret, and where its coals glowed, 
only the white ashes that cover the embers of memory, 
— don't let your heart grow cold, and you may carry 
cheerfulness and love with you into the teens of 
your second century, if you can last so long. As our 
friend, the Poet, once said, in some of those old- 
fashioned heroics of his which he keeps for his 
private reading, — 

Call him not old, whose visionary brain 
Holds o'er the past its undivided reign. 



174 THE AUTOCRAT 

For him in vain the envious seasons roll 
Who bears eternal summer in his soul. 
If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, 
Spring with her birds, or children with their play, 
Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art 
Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, — 
Turn to the record where his years are told, — 
Count his gray hairs, — they cannot make him old ! 
End of the Professor s paper. 

[The above essay was not read at one time, but in 
several instalments, and accompanied by various com- 
ments from different persons at the table. The com- 
pany were in the main attentive, with the exception 
of a little somnolence on the part of the old gentleman 
opposite at times, and a few sly, malicious questions 
about the " old boys " on the part of that forward 
young fellow who has figured occasionally, not always 
to his advantage, in these reports. 

On Sunday mornings, in obedience to a feeling I 
am not ashamed of, I have always tried to give a 
more appropriate character to our conversation. I 
have never read them my sermon yet, and I don't 
know that I shall, as some of them might take my 
convictions as a personal indignity to themselves. 
But having read our company so much of the Pro- 
fessor's talk about age and other subjects connected 
with physical life, I took the next Sunday morning to 
repeat to them the following poem of his, which I 
have had by me some time. He calls it — I suppose, 
for his professional friends — The Anatomist's 
Hymn; but I shall name it — ] 

THE LIVING TEMPLE. 

Not in the world of light alone, 

Where God has built his blazing throne, 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 75 

Nor yet alone in earth below, 
With belted seas that come and go, 
And endless isles of sunlit green, 
Is all thy Maker's glory seen : 
Look in upon thy wondrous frame, — 
Eternal wisdom still the same ! 

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves 
Flows murmuring through its hidden caves, 
Whose streams of brightening purple rush 
Fired with a new and livelier blush, 
While all their burden of decay 
The ebbing current steals away, 
And red with Nature's flame they start 
From the warm fountains of the heart. 

No rest that throbbing slave may ask, 
Forever quivering o'er his task, 
While far and wide a crimson jet 
Leaps forth to fill the woven net 
Which in unnumbered crossing tides 
The flood of burning life divides, 
Then kindling each decaying part 
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart. 

But warmed with that unchanging flame 
Behold the outward moving frame, 
Its living marbles jointed strong 
With glistening band and silvery thong, 
And linked to reason's guiding reins 
By myriad rings in trembling chains, 
Each graven with the threaded zone 
Which claims it as the master's own. 

See how yon beam of seeming white 
Is braided out of seven-hued light, 
Yet in those lucid globes no ray 
By any chance shall break astray. 
Hark how the rolling surge of sound, 
Arches and spirals circling round, 
Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear 
W T ith music it is heaven to hear. 



176 AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds 
All thought in its mysterious folds, 
That feels sensation's faintest thrill 
And flashes forth the sovereign will ; 
Think on the stormy world that dwells 
Locked in its dim and clustering cells ! 
The lightning gleams of power it sheds 
Along its hollow glassy threads ! 

O Father ! grant thy love divine 
To make these mystic temples thine ! 
When wasting age and wearying strife 
Have sapped the leaning walls of life, 
When darkness gathers over all, 
And the last tottering pillars fall, 
Take the poor dust thy mercy warms 
And mould it into heavenly forms ! 



VIII. 

[Spring has come. You will find some verses to 
that effect at the end of these notes. If you are an 
impatient reader, skip to them at once. In reading 
aloud, omit, if you please, the sixth and seventh verses. 
These are parenthetical and digressive, and, unless 
your audience is of superior intelligence, will confuse 
them. Many people can ride on horseback who find 
it hard to get on and to get off without assistance. 
One has to dismount from an idea, and get into the 
saddle again, at every parenthesis.] 

— The old gentleman who sits opposite, finding 
that spring had fairly come, mounted a white hat one 
day, and walked into the street. It seems to have 
been a premature or otherwise exceptionable exhibi- 
tion, not unlike that commemorated by the late Mr. 
Bayly. When the old gentleman came home, he 
looked very red in the face, and complained that he 
had been "made sport of." By sympathizing ques- 
tions, I learned from him that a boy had called him 
"old daddy," and asked him when he had his hat 
whitewashed. 

This incident led me to make some observations at 
table the next morning, which I here repeat for the 
benefit of the readers of this record. 

— The hat is the vulnerable point of the artificial 
integument. I learned this in early boyhood. I was 
once equipped in a hat of Leghorn straw, having a 

177 



178 THE AUTOCRAT 

brim of much wider dimensions than were usual at 
that time, and sent to school in that portion of my 
native town which lies nearest to this metropolis. 
On my way I was met by a " Port-chuck,'" as we used 
to call the young gentlemen of that locality, and the 
following dialogue ensued. 

The Port-chuck. Hullo, You-sir, joo know th' wuz 
gon-to be a race to-morrah? 

Myself. No. Who's gon-to run, V where 's 't 
gon-to be ? 

The Port-chuck. Squire Mico V Doctor Williams, 
round the brim o 1 your hat. 

These two much-respected gentlemen being the 
oldest inhabitants at that time, and the alleged race- 
course being out of the question, the Port-chuck also 
winking and thrusting his tongue into his cheek, I 
perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect 
has been to make me sensitive and observant respect- 
ing this article of dress ever since. Here is an axiom 
or two relating to it. 

A hat which has been popped, or exploded by 
being sat down upon, is never itself again after- 
wards. 

It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe 
the contrary. 

Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its 
hat. There is always an unnatural calmness about 
its nap, and an unwholesome gloss, suggestive of a 
wet brush. 

The last effort of decayed fortune is expended in 
smoothing its dilapidated castor. The hat is the 
ultimum moriens of " respectability." 

— The old gentleman took all these remarks and 
maxims very pleasantly, saying, however, that he had 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 79 

forgotten most of his French except the word for 
potatoes, — fiummies de tare. — Ultimum moriens, I 
told him, is old Italian, and signifies last thing to die. 
With this explanation he was well contented, and 
looked quite calm when I saw him afterwards in the 
entry with a black hat on his head and the white one 
in his hand. 

— : I think myself fortunate in having the Poet and 
the Professor for my intimates. We are so much 
together, that we no doubt think and talk a good deal 
alike ; yet our points of view are in many respects 
individual and peculiar. You know me well enough 
by this time. I have not talked with you so long for 
nothing, and therefore I don't think it necessary to 
draw my own portrait. But let me say a word or two 
about my friends. 

The Professor considers himself, and I consider 
him, a very useful and worthy kind of drudge. I think 
he has a pride in his small technicalities. I know 
that he has a great idea of fidelity ; and though I 
suspect he laughs a little inwardly at times at the 
grand airs " Science " puts on, as she stands marking 
time, but not getting on, while the trumpets are blow- 
ing and the big drums beating, — yet I am sure he has 
a liking for his specialty, and a respect for its culti- 
vators. 

But 1 11 tell you what the Professor said to the Poet 
the other day. My boy, said he, I can work a great 
deal cheaper than you, because I keep all my goods 
in the lower story. You have to hoist yours into the 
upper chambers of the brain, and let them down 
again to your customers. I take mine in at the level 
of the ground, and send them off from my doorstep 



l8o THE AUTOCRAT 

almost without lifting. I tell you, the higher a 
man has to carry the raw material of thought 
before he works it up, the more it costs him in 
blood, nerve, and muscle. Coleridge knew all this 
very well when he advised every literary man to 
have a profession. 

— Sometimes I like to talk with one of them, and 
sometimes with the other. After a while I get tired 
of both. When a fit of intellectual disgust comes 
over me, I will tell you what I have found admirable 
as a diversion, in addition to boating and other 
amusements which I have spoken of, — that is, work- 
ing at my carpenter's-bench. Some mechanical 
employment is the greatest possible relief, after the 
purely intellectual faculties begin to tire. When I 
was quarantined once at Marseilles, I got to work 
immediately at carving a wooden wonder of loose 
rings on a stick, and got so interested in it, that, when 
we were set loose, I "regained my freedom with a 
sigh," because my toy was unfinished. 

There are long seasons when I talk only with the 
Professor, and others when I give myself wholly up 
to the Poet. Now that my winter's work is over, 
and spring is with us, I feel naturally drawn to the 
Poet's company. I don't know anybody more alive 
to life than he is. The passion of poetry seizes on 
him every spring, he says, — yet oftentimes he com- 
plains, that, when he feels most, he can sing least. 

Then a fit of despondency comes over him. — I 
feel ashamed, sometimes, — said he, the other day, — 
to think how far my worst songs fall below my best. 
It sometimes seems to me, as I know it does to 
others who have told me so, that they ought to be 
all best, — if not in actual execution, at least in plan 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. l8l 

and motive. I am grateful — he continued — for all 
such criticisms. A man is always pleased to have 
his most serious efforts praised, and the highest 
aspect of his nature get the most sunshine. 

Yet I am sure, that, in the nature of things, many 
minds must change their key now and then, on pen- 
alty of getting out of tune or losing their voices. 
You know, I suppose, — he said, — what is meant by 
complementary colors ? You know the effect, too, 
which the prolonged impression of any one color has 
on the retina. If you close your eyes after looking 
steadily at a red object, you see a green image. 

It is so with many minds, — I will not say with all. 
After looking at one aspect of external nature, or of 
any form of beauty or truth, when they turn away, 
the complement l ary aspect of the same object stamps 
itself irresistibly and automatically upon the mind. 
Shall they give expression to this secondary mental 
state, or not ? 

When I contemplate — said my friend, the Poet — 
the infinite largeness of comprehension belonging to 
the Central Intelligence, how remote the creative 
conception is from all scholastic and ethical formulae, 
I am led to think that a healthy mind ought to 
change its mood from time to time, and come down 
from its noblest condition, — never, of course, to 
degrade itself by dwelling upon what is itself debas- 
ing, but to let its lower faculties have a chance to air 
and exercise themselves. After the first and second 
floor have been out in the bright street dressed in all 
their splendors, shall not our humble friends in the 
basement have their holiday, and the cotton velvet 
and the thin-skinned jewelry — simple adornments, 
but befitting the station of those who wear them — 



1 82 THE AUTOCRAT 

show themselves to the crowd, who think them beau- 
tiful, as they ought to, though the people up stairs 
know that they are cheap and perishable ? 

— I don't know that I may not bring the Poet 
here, some day or other, and let him speak for him- 
self. Still I think I can tell you what he says quite 
as well as he could do it. — Oh, — he said to me, one 
day, — I am but a hand-organ man, — say rather, a 
hand-organ. Life" turns the winch, and fancy or 
accident pulls out the stops. I come under your 
windows, some fine spring morning, and play you 
one of my adagio movements, and some of you say, 
— This is good, — play us so always. But, dear 
friends, if I did not change the stop sometimes, the 
machine would wear out in one part and rust in 
another. How easily this or that tune flows! — you 
say, — there must be no end of just such melodies in 
him. — I will open the poor machine for you one mo- 
ment, and you shall look. — Ah! Every note marks 
where a spur of steel has been driven in. It is easy 
to grind out the song, but to plant these bristling 
points which make it was the painful task of time. 

I don't like to say it, — he continued, — but poets 
commonly have no larger stock of tunes than hand- 
organs ; and when you hear them piping up under 
your window, you know pretty well what to expect. 
The more stops, the better. Do let them all be 
pulled out in their turn ! 

So spoke my friend, the Poet, and read me one of 
his stateliest songs, and after it a gay chanson, and 
then a string of epigrams. All true, — he said, — all 
flowers of his soul ; only one with the corolla spread, 
and another with its disk half opened, and the third 
with the heart-leaves covered up and only a petal or 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 83 

two showing its tip through the calyx. The water- 
lily is the type of the poet's soul, — he told me. 

— What do you think, Sir, — said the divinity-stu- 
dent, — opens the souls of poets most fully? 

Why, there must be the internal force and the ex- 
ternal stimulus. Neither is enough by itself. A rose 
will not flower in the dark, and a fern will not flower 
anywhere. 

What do I think is the true sunshine that opens the 
poet's corolla? — I don't like to say. They spoil a 
good many, I am afraid ; or at least they shine on a 
good many that never come to anything. 

Who are they? — said the schoolmistress. 

Women. Their love first inspires the poet, and 
their praise is his best reward. 

The schoolmistress reddened a little, but looked 
pleased. — Did I really think so? — I do think so; I 
never feel safe until I have pleased them ; I don't 
think they are the first to see one's defects, but they 
are the first to catch the color and fragrance of a true 
poem. Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a 
bow-string, — to a woman and it is a harp-string. She 
is vibratile and resonant all over, so she stirs with 
slighter musical tremblings of the air about her. — Ah, 
me! — said my friend, the Poet, to me, the other day, 
— what color would it not have given to my thoughts, 
and what thrice-washed whiteness to my words, had 
I been fed on women's praises! I should have grown 
like Mar veil's fawn, — 

" Lilies without ; roses within ! " 

But then, — he added, — we all think, if so and so, 
we should have been this or that, as you were saying, 
the other day, in those rhymes of yours. 



1 84 THE AUTOCRAT 

— I don't think there are many poets in the sense 
of creators ; but of those sensitive natures which reflect 
themselves naturally in soft and melodious words, 
pleading for sympathy with their joys and sorrows, 
every literature is full. Nature carves with her own 
hands the brain which holds the creative imagination, 
but she casts the over-sensitive creatures in scores 
from the same mould. 

There are two kinds of poets, just as there are two 
kinds of blondes. [Movement of curiosity among 
our ladies at table. — Please to tell us about those 
blondes, said the schoolmistress.] Why, there are 
blondes who are such simply by deficiency of coloring 
matter, — negative or washed blondes, arrested by 
Nature on the way to become albinesses. There are 
others that are shot through with golden light, with 
tawny or fulvous tinges in various degree, — positive 
or stained blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and 
as unlike in their mode of being to the others as an 
orange is unlike a snowball. The albino-style carries 
with it a wide pupil and a sensitive retina. The other, 
or the leonine blonde, has an opaline fire in her clear 
eye, which the brunette can hardly match with her 
quick glittering glances. 

Just so we have the great sun-kindled,, constructive 
imaginations, and a far more numerous class of poets 
who have a certain kind of moonlight-genius given 
them to compensate for their imperfection of nature. 
Their want of mental coloring-matter makes them 
sensitive to those impressions which stronger minds 
neglect or never feel at all. Many of them die young, 
and all of them are tinged with melancholy. There 
is no more beautiful illustration of the principle of 
compensation which marks the Divine benevolence 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 85 

than the fact that some of the holiest lives and some 
of the sweetest songs are the growth of the infirmity 
which unfits its subject for the rougher duties of life. 
When one reads the life of Cowper, or of Keats, or of 
Lucretia and Margaret Davidson, — of so many gentle, 
sweet natures, born to weakness, and mostly dying 
before their time, — one cannot help thinking that the 
human race dies out singing, like the swan in the old 
story. The French poet, Gilbert, who died at the 
Hotel Dieu, at the age of twenty-nine, (killed by a 
key in his throat, which he had swallowed when 
delirious in consequence of a fall,) — this poor fel- 
low was a very good example of the poet by excess of 
sensibility. I found, the other day, that some of my 
literary friends had never heard of him, though I sup- 
pose few educated Frenchmen do not know the lines 
which he wrote, a week before his death, upon a mean 
bed in the great hospital of Paris. 

11 Au banquet de la vie, infortune convive, 
J'apparus un jour, et je meurs ; 
Je meurs, et sur ma tombe, ou lentement j'arrive, 
Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs." 

At life's gay banquet placed, a poor, unhappy guest, 

One day I pass, then disappear ; 
I die, and on the tomb where I at length shall rest 

No friend shall come to shed a tear. 

You remember the same thing in other words some- 
where in Kirke White's poems. It is the burden of 
the plaintive songs of all these sweet albino-poets. 
" I shall die and be forgotten, and the world will go 
on just as if I had never been ; — and yet how I have 
loved ! how I have longed ! how I have aspired ! " 
And so singing, their eyes grow brighter and brighter, 



1 86 THE AUTOCRAT 

and their features thinner and thinner, until at last 
the veil of flesh is threadbare, and, still singing, they 
drop it and pass onward. 

— Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel 
of Life winds them up once for all, then closes the 
case, and gives the key into the hand of the Angel of 
the Resurrection. 

Tic-tac ! tic-tac ! go the wheels of thought ; our 
will cannot stop them ; they cannot stop themselves ; 
sleep cannot still them ; madness only makes them 
go faster ; death alone can break into the case, and, 
seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call 
the heart, silence at last the clicking of the terrible 
escapement we have carried so long beneath our 
wrinkled foreheads. 

If we could only get at them, as we lie on our 
pillows and count the dead beats of thought after 
thought and image after image jarring through the 
overtired organ ! Will nobody block those wheels, 
uncouple that pinion, cut the string that holds those 
weights, blow up the infernal machine with gun- 
powder ? What a passion comes over us sometimes 
for silence and rest ! — that this dreadful mechanism, 
unwinding the endless tapestry of time, embroidered 
with spectral figures of life and death, could have 
but one brief holiday ! Who can wonder that men 
swing themselves off from beams in hempen lassos ? 
— that they jump off from parapets into the swift and 
gurgling waters beneath ? — that they take counsel of 
the grim friend who has but to utter his one peremp- 
tory monosyllable and the restless machine is shiv- 
ered as a vase that is dashed upon a marble floor ? 
Under that building which we pass every day there 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 87 

are strong dungeons, where neither hook, nor bar y 
nor bed-cord, nor drinking-vessel from which a sharp 
fragment may be shattered, shall by any chance be 
seen. There is nothing for it, when the brain is on 
fire with the whirling of its wheels, but to spring 
against the stone wall and silence them with one 
crash. Ah, they remembered that, — the kind city 
fathers, — and the walls are nicely padded, so that 
one can take such exercise as he likes without dam- 
aging himself on the very plain and serviceable up- 
holstery. If anybody would only contrive some kind 
of a lever that one could thrust in among the works 
of this horrid automaton and check them, or alter 
their rate of going, what would the world give for the 
discovery Ik 

— From half a dime to a dime, according to the 
style of the place and the quality of the liquor, — 
said the young fellow whom they call John. 

You speak trivially, but not unwisely, — I said. 
Unless the will maintain a certain control over these 
movements, which it cannot stop, but can to some 
extent regulate, men are very apt to try to get at 
the machine by some indirect system of leverage or 
other. They clap on the brakes by means of opium ; 
they change the maddening monotony of the rhythm 
by means of fermented liquors. It is because the 
brain is locked up and we cannot touch its movement 
directly, that we thrust these coarse tools in through 
any crevice, by which they may reach the interior, 
and so alter its rate of going for a while, and at last 
spoil the machine. 

Men who exercise chiefly those faculties of the 
mind which work independently of the will, — poets 
and artists, for instance, who follow their imagination 



1 88 THE AUTOCRAT 

in their creative moments, instead of keeping it in 
hand as your logicians and practical men do with 
their reasoning faculty, — such men are too apt to 
call in the mechanical appliances to help them govern 
their intellects. 

— He means they get drunk, — said the young fel- 
low already alluded to by name. 

Do you think men of true genius are apt to indulge 
in the use of inebriating fluids? — said the divinity- 
student. 

If you think you are strong enough to bear what I am 
going to say, — I replied, — I will talk to you about 
this. But mind, now, these are the things that some 
foolish people call dangerous subjects, — as if these 
vices which burrow into people's souls, as the 
Guinea-worm burrows into the naked feet of West- 
Indian slaves, would be more mischievous when seen 
than out of sight. Now the true way to deal with 
those obstinate animals, which are a dozen feet long, 
some of them, and no bigger than a horse hair, is to 
get a piece of silk round their heads, and pull them 
out very cautiously. If you only break them off, they 
grow worse than ever, and sometimes kill the person 
who has the misfortune to harbor one of them. 
Whence it is plain that the first thing to do is to find 
out where the head lies. 

Just so of all the vices, and particularly of this vice 
of intemperance. What is the head of it, and where 
does it lie ? For you may depend upon it, there is 
not one of these vices that has not a head of its own, — 
an intelligence, — a meaning, — a certain virtue, I was 
going to say, — but that might, perhaps, sound para- 
doxical. I have heard an immense number of moral 
physicians lay down the treatment of moral Guinea- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 89 

worms, and the vast majority of them would always 
insist that the creature had no head at all, but was all 
body and tail. So I have found a very common 
result of their method to be that the string slipped, or 
that a piece only of the creature was broken off, and 
the worm soon grew again, as bad as ever. The 
truth is, if the Devil could only appear in church by 
attorney, and make the best statement that the facts 
would bear him out in doing on behalf of his special 
virtues, (what we commonly call vices,) the influence 
of good teachers would be much greater than it is. 
For the arguments by which the Devil prevails are 
precisely the ones that the Devil-queller most rarely 
answers. The way to argue down a vice is not to 
tell lies about it, — to say that it has no attractions, 
when everybody knows that it has, — but rather to let 
it make out its case just as it certainly will in the 
moment of temptation, and then meet it with the 
weapons furnished by the Divine armory. Ithuriel 
did not spit the toad on his spear, you remember, but 
touched him with it, and the blasted angel took the 
sad glories of his true shape. If he had shown fight 
then, the fair spirits would have known how to deal 
with him. 

That all spasmodic cerebral action is an evil is not 
perfectly clear. Men get fairly intoxicated with music, 
with poetry, with religious excitement, — oftenestwith 
love. Ninon de FEnclos said she was so easily ex- 
cited that her soup intoxicated her, and convalescents 
have been made tipsy by a beef-steak. 

There are forms and stages of alcoholic exaltation 
which, in themselves, and without regard to their 
consequences, might be considered as positive im- 
provements of the persons affected. When the slug- 



190 THE AUTOCRAT 

gish intellect is roused, the slow speech quickened, 
the cold nature warmed, the latent sympathy devel- 
oped, the flagging spirit kindled,- — before the trains 
of thought become confused, or the will perverted, or 
the muscles relaxed, — just at the moment when the 
whole human zoophyte flowers out like a full-blown 
rose, and is ripe for the subscription-paper or the con- 
tribution-box, — it would be hard to say that a man 
was, at that very time, worse, or less to be loved, than 
when driving a hard bargain with all his meaner wits 
about him. The difficulty is, that the alcoholic 
virtues don't wash ; but until the water takes their 
colors out, the tints are very much like those of the 
true celestial stuff. 

[Here I was interrupted by a question which I am 
very unwilling to report, but have confidence enough 
in those friends who examine these records to commit 
to their candor. 

A person at table asked me whether I " went in for 
rum as a steady drink ? " — His manner made the 
question highly offensive, but I restrained myself, 
and answered thus : — ] 

Rum I take to be the name which unwashed moral- 
ists apply alike to the product distilled from molasses 
and the noblest juices of the vineyard. Burgundy 
" in all its sunset glow " is rum. Champagne, the 
foaming wine of Eastern France, 1 ' is rum. Hock, 
which our friend, the Poet, speaks of as 

11 The Rhine's breastmilk, gushing cold and bright, 
Pale as the moon, and maddening as her light," 

is rum. Sir, I repudiate the loathsome vulgarism as 
an insult to the first miracle wrought by the Founder 
of our religion ! I address myself to the company. — 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 191 

I believe in temperance, nay, almost in abstinence, as 
a rule for healthy people. I trust that I practise both. 
But let me tell you, there are companies of men of 
genius into which I sometimes go, where the atmos- 
phere of intellect and sentiment is so much more 
stimulating than alcohol, that, if I thought fit to take 
wine, it would be to keep me sober. 

Among the gentlemen that I have known, few, if, 
any, were ruined by drinking. My few drunken 
acquaintances were generally ruined before they 
became drunkards. The habit of drinking is often a 
vice, no doubt, — sometimes a misfortune, — as when 
an almost irresistible hereditary propensity exists to 
indulge in it, — but oftenest of all a punishment. 

Empty heads, — heads without ideas in wholesome 
variety and sufficient number to furnish food for the 
mental clockwork, — ill-regulated heads, where the 
faculties are not under the control of the will, — these 
are the ones that hold the brains which their owners 
are so apt to tamper with, by introducing the appli- 
ances we have been talking about. Now, when a 
gentleman's brain is empty or ill-regulated, it is, to a 
great extent, his own fault ; and so it is simple retri- 
bution, that, while he lies slothfully sleeping or aim- 
lessly dreaming, the fatal habit settles on him like a 
vampyre, and sucks his blood, fanning him all the 
while with its hot wings into deeper slumber or idler 
dreams! I am not such a hard-souled being as to 
apply this to the neglected poor, who have had no 
chance to fill their heads with wholesome ideas, and 
to be taught the lesson of self-government. I trust 
the tariff of Heaven has an ad valorem scale for them, 
— and all of us. 

But to come back to poets and artists ; — if they 



192 THE AUTOCRAT 

really are more prone to the abuse of stimulants, — 
and I fear that this is true, — the reason of it is only 
too clear. A man abandons himself to a fine frenzy, 
and the power which flows through him, as I once 
explained to you, makes him the medium of a great 
poem or a great picture. The creative action is not 
voluntary at all, but automatic ; we can only put the 
mind into the proper attitude, and wait for the wind, 
that blows where it listeth, to breathe over it. Thus 
the true state of creative genius is allied to reverie, or 
dreaming. If mind and body were both healthy, and 
had food enough and fair play, I doubt whether any 
men would be more temperate than the imaginative 
classes. But body and mind often flag, — perhaps 
they are ill-made to begin with, underfed with bread 
or ideas, overworked, or abused in some way. The 
automatic action, by which genius wrought its won- 
ders, fails. There is only one thing which can rouse 
the machine ; not will, — that cannot reach it ; nothing 
but a ruinous agent, which hurries the wheels awhile 
and soon eats out the heart of the mechanism. The 
dreaming faculties are always the dangerous ones, 
because their mode of action can be imitated by arti- 
ficial excitement ; the reasoning ones are safe, because 
they imply continued voluntary effort. 

I think you will find it true, that, before any vice 
can fasten on a man, body, mind, or moral nature 
must be debilitated. The mosses and fungi gather 
on sickly trees, not thriving ones ; and the odious 
parasites which fasten on the human frame choose 
that which is already enfeebled. Mr. Walker, the 
hygeian humorist, declared that he had such a healthy 
skin it was impossible for any impurity to stick to it, 
and maintained that it was an absurdity to wash a 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 93 

face which was of necessity always clean. I donH 
know how much fancy there was in this ; but there 
is no fancy in saying that the lassitude of tired-out 
operatives, and the languor of imaginative natures in 
their periods of collapse, and the vacuity of minds 
untrained to labor and discipline, fit the soul and 
body for the germination of the seeds of intemperance. 
Whenever the wandering demon of Drunkenness 
finds a ship adrift, — no steady wind in its sails, no 
thoughtful pilot directing its course, — he steps on 
board, takes the helm, and steers straight for the 
maelstrom. 

— I wonder if you know the terrible smile? [The 
young fellow whom they call John winked very 
hard, and made a jocular remark, the sense of which 
seemed to depend on some double meaning of the 
word smile. The company was curious to know what 
I meant.] 

There are persons — I said, — who no sooner come 
within sight of you than they begin to smile, with an 
uncertain movement of the mouth, which conveys 
the idea that they are thinking about themselves, and 
thinking, too, that you are thinking they are thinking 
about themselves, — and so look at you with a wretched 
mixture of self-consciousness, awkwardness, and at- 
tempts to carry off both, which are betrayed by the 
cowardly behavior of the eye and the tell-tale weak- 
ness of the lips that characterize these unfortunate 
beings. 

— Why do you call them unfortunate, Sir ? — asked 
the divinity-student. 

Because it is evident that the consciousness of some 
imbecility or other is at the bottom of this extraor- 



194 THE AUTOCRAT 

dinary expression. I don't think, however, that these 
persons are commonly fools. I have known a number, 
and all of them were intelligent. I think nothing 
conveys the idea of under breeding more than this 
self-betraying smile. Yet I think this peculiar habit 
as well as that of meaningless blushing, may be fallen 
into by very good people who meet often, or sit oppo- 
site each other at table. A true gentleman's face is 
infinitely removed from all such paltriness, — calm- 
eyed, firm-mouthed. I think Titian understood the 
look of a gentleman as well as anybody that ever lived. 
The portrait of a young man holding a glove in his 
hand, in the Gallery of the Louvre, if any of you have 
seen that collection, will remind you of what I mean. 

Do I think these people know the peculiar look 
they have ? — I cannot say ; I hope not ; I am afraid 
they would never forgive me if they did. The worst 
of it is, the trick is catching ; when one meets one of 
these fellows, he feels a tendency to the same mani- 
festation. The Professor tells me there is a muscular 
slip, a dependence of the platysma myoides, which is 
called the risorius Santorini. 

— Say that once more, — exclaimed the young fel- 
low mentioned above. 

The Professor says there is a little fleshy slip called 
Santorini's laughing muscle. I would have it cut out 
of my face, if I were born with one of those constitu- 
tional grins upon it. Perhaps I am uncharitable in 
my judgment of those sour-looking people I told you 
of the other day, and of these smiling folks. It may 
be that they are born with these looks, as other people 
are with more generally recognized deformities. ; Both 
are bad enough, but I had rather meet three of the 
scowlers than one of the smilers. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 95 

— There is another unfortunate way of looking, 
which is peculiar to that amiable sex we do not like 
to find fault with. There are some very pretty, but, 
unhappily, very ill-bred women, who don't under- 
stand the law of the road with regard to handsome 
faces. Nature and custom would, no doubt, agree in 
conceding to all males the right of at least two dis- 
tinct looks at every comely female countenance, with- 
out any infraction of the rules of courtesy or the 
sentiment of respect. The first look is necessary to 
define the person of the individual one meets so as 
to avoid it in passing. Any unusual attraction de- 
tected in a first glance is a sufficient apology for a 
second, — not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but 
an appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger 
may inoffensively yield to a passing image. It is 
astonishing how morbidly sensitive some vulgar 
beauties are to the slightest demonstration of this 
kind. When a lady walks the streets, she leaves her 
virtuous-indignation countenance at home ; she knows 
well enough that the street is a picture-gallery, where 
pretty faces framed in pretty bonnets are meant to be 
seen, and everybody has a right to see them. 

— When we observe how the same features and 
style of person and character descend from gener- 
ation to generation, we can believe that some in- 
herited weakness may account for these peculiarities. 
Little snapping-turtles snap — so the great naturalist 
tells us — before they are out of the egg-shell. I am 
satisfied, that, much higher up in the scale of life, 
character is distinctly shown at the age of — 2 or — 3 
months. 

— My friend, the Professor, has been full of eggs 
lately. [This remark excited a burst of hilarity, 



196 THE AUTOCRAT 

which I did not allow to interrupt the course of my 
observations.] He has been reading the great book 
where he found the fact about the little snapping- 
turtles mentioned above. Some of the things he 
has told me have suggested several odd analogies 
enough . 

There are half a dozen men, or so, who carry in 
their brains the ovarian eggs of the next generation's 
or century's civilization. These eggs are not ready 
to be laid in the form of books as yet ; some of them 
are hardly ready to be put into the form of talk. 
But as rudimentary ideas or inchoate tendencies, there 
they are ; and these are what must form the future. 
A man's general notions are not good for much, 
unless he has a crop of these intellectual ovarian 
eggs in his own brain, or knows them as they exist 
in the minds of others. One must be in the habit of 
talking with such persons to get at these rudimentary 
germs of thought ; for their development is neces- 
sarily imperfect, and they are moulded on new 
patterns, which must be long and closely studied. 
But these are the men to talk with. No fresh truth 
ever gets into a book. 

— A good many fresh lies get in, anyhow, — said 
one of the company. 

I proceeded in spite of the interruption. — All 
uttered thought, my friend, the Professor, says, is of 
the nature of an excretion. Its materials have been 
taken in, and have acted upon the system, and been 
reacted on by it ; it has circulated and done its office 
in one mind before it is given out for the benefit of 
others. It may be milk or venom to other minds ; 
but, in either case, it is something which the producer 
has had the use of and can part with. A man instinc- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 97 

tively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or 
in print so soon as it is matured ; but it is hard to get 
at it as it lies imbedded, a mere potentiality, the germ 
of a germ, in his intellect. 

— Where are the brains that are fullest of these 
ovarian eggs of thought ? — I decline mentioning 
individuals. The producers of thought, who are 
few, the " jobbers " of thought, who are many, and 
the retailers of thought, who are numberless, are so 
mixed up in the popular apprehension, that it would 
be hopeless to try to separate them before opinion 
has had time to settle. Follow the course of opinion 
on the great subjects of human interest for a few 
generations or centuries, get its parallax, map out a 
small arc of its movement, see where it tends, and 
then see who is in advance of it or even with it ; the 
world calls him hard names, probably ; but if you 
would find the ova of the future, you must look into 
the folds of his cerebral convolutions. 

[The divinity-student looked a little puzzled at 
this suggestion, as if he did not see exactly where 
he was to come out, if he computed his arc too 
nicely. I think it possible it might cut off a few 
corners of his present belief, as it has cut off martyr- 
burning and witch-hanging ; — but time will show, 
— time will show, as the old gentleman opposite 
says.] 

— Oh, — here is that copy of verses I told you 
about. 

SPRING HAS COME. 

Intra Muros. 

THE sunbeams, lost for half a year, 
Slant through my pane their morning rays; 



198 THE AUTOCRAT 

For dry Northwesters, cold and clear, 
The East blows in its thin blue haze. 

And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, 
Then close against the sheltering wall 

The tulip's horn of dusky green, 
The peony's dark unfolding ball. 

The golden-chaliced crocus burns ; 

The long narcissus-blades appear ; 
The cone-beaked hyacinth returns, 

And lights her blue-flamed chandelier. 

The willow's whistling lashes, wrung 
By the wild winds of gusty March, 

With sallow leaflets lightly strung, 
Are swaying by the tufted larch. 

The elms have robed their slender spray 
With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; 

Wide o'er the clasping arch of day 
Soars like a cloud their hoary chief. 

— [See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, 
That flames in glory for an hour, — 

Behold it withering, — then look up, — 
How meek the forest-monarch's flower! — 

When wake the violets, Winter dies ; 

When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near; 
When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, 

" Bud, little roses ! Spring is here ! "] 

The windows blush with fresh bouquets, 
Cut with the May-dew on their lips ; 

The radish all its bloom displays, 
Pink as Aurora's finger-tips. 

Nor less the flood of light that showers 
On beauty's changed corolla-shades,— 

The walks are gay as bridal bowers 
With rows of many-petalled maids. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 199 

The scarlet shell-fish click and clash 

In the blue barrow where they slide ; 
The horseman, proud of streak and splash, 

Creeps homeward from his morning ride. 

Here comes the dealer's awkward string, 
With neck in rope and tail in knot, — 

Rough colts, with careless country-swing, 
In lazy walk or slouching trot. 

— Wild filly from the mountain-side, 
Doomed to the close and chafing thills, 

Lend me thy long, untiring stride 
To seek with thee thy western hills ! 

I hear the whispering voice of Spring, 

The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, 
Like some poor bird with prisoned wing 

That sits and sings, but longs to fly. 

Oh for one spot of living green, — 

One little spot where leaves can grow, — 

To love unblamed, to walk unseen, 
To dream above, to sleep below ! 



IX. 



\Aqid estd encerrada el alma del licenciado Pedro 
Garcias. 

If I should ever make a little book out of these 
papers, which I hope you are not getting tired of, I 
suppose I ought to save the above sentence for a 
motto on the title-page. But I want it now, and 
must use it. I need not say to you that the words 
are Spanish, nor that they are to be found in the 
short Introduction to "Gil Bias,' 1 nor that they mean* 
"Here lies buried the soul of the licentiate Pedro 
Garcias.'" 

I warned all young people off the premises when 
I began my notes referring to old age. I must be 
equally fair with old people now. They are earnestly 
requested to leave this paper to young persons from 
the age of twelve to that of four-score years and ten, 
at which latter period of life I am sure that I shall 
have at least one youthful reader. You know well 
enough what I mean by youth and age ; — something 
in the soul, which has no more to do with the color 
of the hair than the vein of gold in a rock has to do 
with the grass a thousand feet above it. 

I am growing bolder as I write. I think it requires 
not only youth, but genius, to read this paper. I 
don't mean to imply that it required any whatsoever 
to talk what I have here written down. It did de- 
mand a certain amount of memory, and such com- 
200 



AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 201 . 

mand of the English tongue as is given by a common 
school education. So much I do claim. But here I 
have related, at length, a string of trivialities. You 
must have the imagination of a poet to transfigure 
them. These little colored patches are stains upon 
the windows of a human soul ; stand on the outside, 
they are but dull and meaningless spots of color ; 
seen from within, they are glorified shapes with em- 
purpled wings and sunbright aureoles. 

My hand trembles when I offer you this. Many 
times I have come bearing flowers such as my garden 
grew ; but now I offer you this poor, brown, homely 
growth, you may cast it away as worthless. And yet 
— and yet — it is something better than flowers ; it is 
a seed-capsule. Many a gardener will cut you a bou- 
quet of his choicest blossoms for small fee, but he 
does not love to let the seeds of his rarest varieties 
go out of his own hands. 

It is by little things that we know ourselves ; a soul 
would very probably mistake itself for another, when 
once disembodied, were it not for individual experi- 
ences which differ from those of others only in details 
seemingly trifling. All of us have been thirsty thou- 
sands of times, and felt, with Pindar, that water was 
the best of things. I alone, as I think, of all man- 
kind, remember one particular pailful of water, fla- 
vored with the white-pine of which the pail was made, 
and the brown mug out of which one Edmund, a red- 
faced and curly-haired boy, was averred to have bitten 
a fragment in his haste to drink : it being then high 
summer, and little full-blooded boys feeling very warm 
and porous in the low-" studded " school-room where 
Dame Prentiss, dead and gone, ruled over young 
children, many of whom are old ghosts now, and have 



202 THE AUTOCRAT 

known Abraham for twenty or thirty years of our 
mortal time. 

Thirst belongs to humanity, everywhere, in all 
ages ; but that white-pine pail, and that brown mug 
belong to me in particular ; and just so of my special 
relationships with other things and with my race. 
One could never remember himself in eternity by the 
mere fact of having loved or hated any more than by 
that of having thirsted ; love and hate have no more 
individuality in them than single waves in the ocean ; 
— but the accidents or trivial marks which distin- 
guished those whom we loved or hated make their 
memory our own forever, and with it that of our own 
personality also. 

Therefore, my aged friend of five-and-twenty, or 
thereabouts, pause at the threshold of this particular 
record, and ask yourself seriously whether you are 
fit to read such revelations as are to follow. For 
observe, you have here no splendid array of petals such 
as poets offer you, — nothing but a dry shell, contain- 
ing, if you will get out what is in it, a few small seeds 
of poems. You may laugh at them, if you like. I 
shall never tell you what I think of you for so doing. 
But if you can read into the heart of these things, in 
the light of other memories as slight, yet as dear to 
your soul, then you are neither more nor less than a 
Poet, and can afford to write no more verses during 
the rest of your natural life, — which abstinence I take 
to be one of the surest marks of your meriting the 
divine name I have just bestowed upon you. 

May I beg of you who have begun this paper, nobly 
trusting to your own imagination and sensibilities to 
give it the significance which it does not lay claim to 
without your kind assistance, — may I beg of you, I 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 203 

say, to pay particular attention to the brackets which 
enclose certain paragraphs ? I want my " asides/' you 
see, to whisper loud to you who read my notes, and 
sometimes I talk a page or two to you without pre- 
tending that I said a word of it to our boarders. You 
will find a very long " aside 1 ' to you almost as soon as 
you begin to read. And so, dear young friend, fall to 
at once, taking such things as I have provided for 
you ; and if you turn them, by the aid of your power- 
ful imagination, into a fair banquet, why, then, peace 
be with you, and a summer by the still waters of some 
quiet river, or by some yellow beach, where, as my 
friend the Professor, says, you can sit with Nature's 
wrist in your hand and count her ocean pulses.] 

I should like to make a few T intimate revelations 
relating especially to my early life, if I thought you 
would like to hear them. 

[The schoolmistress turned a little in her chair, and 
sat with her face directed partly towards me. — Half- 
mourning now ; — purple ribbon. That breastpin she 
wears has gray hair in it ; her mother's, no doubt ; — 
I remember our landlady's daughter telling me, soon 
after the schoolmistress came to board with us, that 
she had lately " buried a payrent." That 's what made 
her look so pale, — kept the poor dying thing alive 
with her own blood. Ah ! long illness is the real 
vampyrism ; think of living a year or two after one is 
dead, by sucking the life blood out of a frail young 
creature at one's bedside ! Well, souls grow white. 
as well as cheeks, in these holy duties ; one that goes 
in a nurse may come out an angel. — God bless all 
good women ! — to their soft hands and pitying hearts 
we must all come at last ! — The schoolmistress has 
a better color than when she came. — Too late ! — "It 



204 THE AUTOCRAT 

might have been." — Amen ! — How many thoughts 
go to a dozen heartbeats, sometimes ! There was no 
long pause after my remark addressed to the company, 
but in that time I had the train of ideas and feelings 
I have just given flash through my consciousness sud- 
den and sharp as the crooked red streak that springs 
out of its black sheath like the creese of a Malay in 
his death-race, and stabs the earth right and left in 
its blind rage. 

I don 1 t deny that there was a pang in it, — yes, a 
stab ; but there was a prayer, too, — the " Amen " 
belonged to that. — Also, a vision of a four-story brick 
house, nicely furnished, — I actually saw many specific 
articles, — curtains, sofas, tables, and others, and could 
draw the patterns of them at this moment, — a brick 
house, I say, looking out on the water, with a fair par- 
lor, and books and busts and pots of flowers and bird- 
cages, all complete ; and at the window, looking on 
the water, two of us. — "Male and female created He 
them." — These two were standing at the window, 
when a smaller shape that was playing near them 
looked up at me with such a look that I — poured 
out a glass of water, drank it all down, and then 
continued.] 

I said I should like to tell you some things, such as 
people commonly never tell, about my early recol- 
lections. Should you like to hear them? 

Should we like to hear them? — said the school- 
mistress ; — no, but we should love to. 

[The voice was a sweet one, naturally, and had 
something very pleasant in its tone, just then. — The 
four-story brick house, which had gone out like a 
transparency when the light behind it is quenched, 
glimmered again for a moment ; parlor, books, busts, 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 205 

flower-pots, bird-cages, all complete, — and the figures 
as before.] 

We are waiting with eagerness, Sir, — said the 
divinity student. 

[The transparency went out as if a flash of black 
lightning had struck it.] 

If you want to hear my confessions, the next thing 
— I said — is to know whether I can trust you with 
them. It is only fair to say that there are a great 
many people in the world that laugh at such things. 
/ think they are fools, but perhaps you don't all 
agree with me. 

Here are children of tender age talked to as if they 
were capable of understanding Calvin's " Institutes, 1 ' 
and nobody has honesty or sense enough to tell the 
plain truth about the little wretches : that they are as 
superstitious as naked savages, and such miserable 
spiritual cowards — that is, if they have any imagina- 
tion — that they will believe anything which is taught 
them, and a great deal more which they teach them- 
selves. 

I was born and bred, as I have told you twenty 
times, among books and those who knew what was 
in books. I was carefully instructed in things tem- 
poral and spiritual. But up to a considerable matu- 
rity of childhood I believed Raphael and Michael 
Angelo to have been superhuman beings. The cen- 
tral doctrine of the prevalent religious faith of Chris- 
tendom was utterly confused and neutralized in my 
mind for years by one of those too common stories 
of actual life, which I overheard repeated in a whis- 
per. — Why did I not ask? you will say. — You don't 
remember the rosy pudency of sensitive children. 
The first instinctive movement of the little creatures 



206 THE AUTOCRAT 

is to make a cache, and bury in it beliefs, doubts, 
dreams, hopes, and terrors. I am uncovering one of 
these caches. Do you think I was necessarily a 
greater fool and coward than another ? 

I was afraid of ships. Why, I could never tell. 
The masts looked frightfully tall, — but they were 
not so tall as the steeple of our old yellow meeting- 
house. At any rate I used to hide my eyes from the 
sloops and schooners that were wont to lie at the end 
of the bridge, and I confess that traces of this unde- 
fined terror lasted very long. — One other source of 
alarm had a still more fearful significance. There 
was a great wooden hand, — a glove-maker's sign, 
which used to swing and creak in the blast, as it 
hung from a pillar before a certain shop a mile or two 
outside of the city. Oh, the dreadful hand ! Always 
hanging there ready to catch up a little boy, who 
would come home to supper no more, nor yet to bed, 
— whose porringer would be laid away empty thence- 
forth, and his half-worn shoes wait until his small 
brother grew to fit them. 

As for all manner of superstitious observances, I 
used once to think I must have been peculiar in 
having such a list of them, but I now believe that 
half the children of the same age go through the 
same experiences. No Roman soothsayer ever had 
such a catalogue of omens as I found in the Sibyl- 
line leaves of my childhood. That trick of throwing 
a stone at a tree and attaching some mighty issue to 
hitting or missing, which you will find mentioned in 
one or more biographies, I well remember. Stepping 
on or over certain particular things or spots — Dr. 
Johnson's especial weakness — I got the habit of at 
a very early age. — I won't swear that I have not 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 207 

some tendency to these not wise practices even at 
this present date. [How many of you that read 
these notes can say the same thing !] 

With these follies mingled sweet delusions, which 
I loved so well I would not outgrow them, even 
when it required a voluntary effort to put a moment- 
ary trust in them. Here is one which I cannot help 
telling you. 

The firing of the great guns at the Navy-yard is 
easily heard at the place where I was born and lived. 
"There is a ship of war come in," they used to say, 
when they heard them. Of course, I supposed that 
such vessels came in unexpectedly, after indefinite 
years of absence, — suddenly as falling stones ; and 
that the great guns roared in their astonishment and 
delight at the sight of the old war-ship splitting the 
bay with her cutwater. Now, the sloop-of-war, the 
Wasp, Captain Blakely, after gloriously capturing 
the Reindeer and the Avon, had disappeared from the 
face of the ocean, and was supposed to be lost. But 
there was no proof of it, and, of course, for a time, 
hopes were entertained that she might be heard 
from. Long after the last real chance had utterly 
vanished, I pleased myself with the fond illusion that 
somewhere on the waste of waters she was still float- 
ing, and there were years during which I never heard 
the sound of the great guns booming inland from the 
Navy-yard without saying to myself, " The Wasp has 
come ! " and almost thinking I could see her, as she 
rolled in, crumpling the water before her, weather- 
beaten, barnacled, with shattered spars and thread- 
bare canvas, welcomed by the shouts and tears of 
thousands. This was one of those dreams that I 
nursed and never told. Let me make a clean breast 



208 THE AUTOCRAT 

of it now, and say, that, so late as to have outgrown 
childhood, perhaps to have got far on towards man- 
hood, when the roar of the cannon has struck sud- 
denly on my ear, I have started with a thrill of vague 
expectation and tremulous delight, and the long-un- 
spoken words have articulated themselves in the 
mind's dumb whisper, The Wasp has co?ne ! 

— Yes, children believe plenty of queer things. I 
suppose all of you have had the pocket-book fever 
when you were little? — What do I mean? Why, 
ripping up old pocket-books in the firm belief that 
bank-bills to an immense amount were hidden in 
them. — So, too, you must all remember some splen- 
did unfulfilled promise of somebody or other, which 
fed you with hopes perhaps for years, and which left 
a blank in your life which nothing has ever filled up. 
— O. T. quitted our household carrying with him 
the passionate regrets of the more youthful members. 
He was an ingenious youngster; wrote wonderful 
copies, and carved the two initials given above with 
great skill on all available surfaces. I thought, by 
the way, they were all gone ; but the other day I 
found them on a certain door which I will show you 
some time. How it surprised me to find them so 
near the ground ! I had thought the boy of no trivial 
dimensions. Well, O. T., when he went, made a 
solemn promise to two of us. I was to have a ship, 
and the other a mar////-house (last syllable pro- 
nounced as in the word tin) . Neither ever came ; 
but, oh, how many and many a time I have stolen to 
the corner, ■ — the cars pass close by it at this time, — 
and looked up that long avenue, thinking that he 
must be coming now, almost sure, as I turned to look 
northward, that there he would be, trudging towards 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 209 

me, the ship in one hand and the mar/z/2-house in 
the other ! 

[You must not suppose that all I am going to say, as 
well as all I have said, was told to the whole company. 
The young fellow whom they call John was in the 
yard, sitting on a barrel and smoking a cheroot, 
the fumes of which came in, not ungrateful, through 
the open window. The divinity-student disappeared 
in the midst of our talk. The poor relation in black 
bombazine, who looked and moved as if all her 
articulations were elbow-joints, had gone off to her 
chamber, after waiting with a look of soul-subduing 
decorum at the foot of the stairs until one of the male 
sort had passed her and ascended into the upper 
regions. This is a famous point of etiquette in our 
boarding-house ; in fact, between ourselves, they 
make such an aAvful fuss about it, that I, for one, had 
a great deal rather have them simple enough not to 
think of such matters at all. Our landlady's daughter 
said, the other evening, that she was going to " re- 
tire" ; whereupon the young fellow called John took 
up a lamp and insisted on lighting her to the foot of 
the staircase. Nothing would induce her to pass by 
him, until the schoolmistress, saying in good plain 
English that it was her bed-time, walked straight by 
them both, not seeming to trouble herself about either 
of them. 

I have been led away from what I meant the por- 
tion included in these brackets to inform my readers 
about. I say, then, most of the boarders had left the 
table about the time when I began telling some of 
these secrets of mine, — all of them, in fact, but the 
old gentleman opposite and the schoolmistress. I 
understand why a young woman should like to hear 



2IO THE AUTOCRAT 

these simple but genuine experiences of early life, 
which are, as I have said, the little brown seeds of 
what may yet grow to be poems with leaves of azure 
and gold ; but when the old gentleman pushed up his 
chair nearer to me, and slanted round his best ear, 
and once, when I was speaking of some trifling, tender 
reminiscence, drew a long breath, with such a tremor , 
in it that a little more and it would have been a sob, 
why, then I felt there must be something of nature in 
them which redeemed their seeming insignificance. 
Tell me, man or woman with whom I am whispering, 
have you not a small store of recollections, such as 
these I am uncovering, buried beneath the dead 
leaves of many summers, perhaps under the unmelt- 
ing snows of fast-returning winters, — a few such 
recollections, which, if you should write them all out, 
would be swept into some careless editor's drawer, 
and might cost a scanty half-hour's lazy reading to 
his subscribers, — and yet, if Death should cheat 
you of them, you would not know, yourself in 
eternity.] 

— I made three acquaintances at a very early 
period of life, my introduction to whom was never for- 
gotten. The first unequivocal act of wrong that has 
left its trace in my memory was this : refusing a 
small favor asked of me, — nothing more than telling 
what had happened at school one morning. No 
matter who asked it ; but there were circumstances 
which saddened and awed me. I had no heart to 
speak; — I faltered some miserable, perhaps petulant 
excuse, stole away, and the first battle of life was lost. 
What remorse followed I need not tell. Then and 
there, to the best of my knowledge, I first consciously 
took Sin by the hand and turned my back on Duty. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 211 

Time has led me to look upon my offence more leni- 
ently ; I do not believe it or any other childish wrong 
is infinite, as some have pretended, but infinitely 
finite. Yet, oh, if I had but won that battle ! 

The great Destroyer, whose awful shadow it was 
that had silenced me, came near me, — but never, so 
as to be distinctly seen and remembered, during my 
tender years. There flits dimly before me the image 
of a little girl, whose name even I have forgotten, a 
schoolmate, whom we missed one day, and were told 
that she had died. But what death was I never had 
any very distinct idea, until one day I climbed the 
low stone wall of the old burial-ground and mingled 
with a group that were looking into a very deep, long, 
narrow hole, dug down through the green sod, down 
through the brown loam, down through the yellow 
gravel, and there at the bottom was an oblong red 
box, and a still, sharp, white face of a young man 
seen through an opening at one end of it. When 
the lid was closed and the gravel and stones rattled 
down pell-mell, and the woman in black, who was 
crying and wringing her hands, went off with the 
other mourners, and left him, then I felt that I had 
seen Death, and should never forget him. 

One other acquaintance I made at an earlier period 
of life than the habit of romancers authorizes. — 
Love, of course. — She was a famous beauty after- 
wards. — I am satisfied that many children rehearse 
their parts in the drama of life before they have shed 
all their milk teeth. — I think I won't tell the story of 
the golden blonde. — I suppose everybody has had his 
childish fancies ; but sometimes they are passionate 
impulses, which anticipate all the tremulous emotions 
belonging to a later period. Most children remem- 



212 THE AUTOCRAT 

ber seeing and adoring an angel before they were a 
dozen years old. 

[The old gentleman had left his chair opposite and 
taken a seat by the schoolmistress and myself, a little 
way from the table. — It 's true, it ? s true, — said the old 
gentleman. — He took hold of a steel watch-chain, 
which carried a large, square gold key at one end and 
was supposed to have some kind of time-keeper at 
the other. With some trouble he dragged up an 
ancient-looking, thick, silver, bull's-eye watch. He 
looked at it for a moment, — hesitated, touched the 
inner corner of his right eye with the pulp of his mid- 
dle finger, — looked at the face of the watch, — said it 
was getting into the forenoon, — then opened-* the 
watch and handed me the loose outside case without 
a word. — The watch-paper had been pink once, and 
had a faint tinge still, as if all its tender life had not 
yet quite faded out. Two little birds, a flower, and, in 
small school-girl letters, a date, — 17 . . — no matter. 
— Before I was thirteen years old, — said the old 
gentleman. — I don't know what was in that young 
schoolmistress's head, nor why she should have 
done it ; but she took out the watch-paper and put it 
softly to her lips, as if she were kissing the poor thing 
that made it so long ago. The old gentleman took 
the watch-paper carefully from her, replaced it, turned 
away and walked out, holding the watch in his hand. 
I saw him pass the window a moment after with that 
foolish white hat on his head ; he could n't have been 
thinking of what he was about when he put it on. So 
the schoolmistress and I were left alone. I drew my 
chair a shade nearer to her, and continued.] 

And since I am talking of early recollections, I 
don't know why I should n't mention some others 




"The Old Gentleman turned away and waiked out, holding the Watch 
in His Hand." 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 213 

that still cling to me, — not that you will attach any 
very particular meaning to these same images so full 
of significance to me, but that you will find something 
parallel to them in your own memory. You remem- 
ber, perhaps, what I said one day about smells. 
There were certain sounds also which had a mysteri- 
ous suggestiveness to me, — not so intense, perhaps, 
as that connected with the other sense, but yet pecul- 
iar, and never to be forgotten. 

The first was the creaking of the wood-sleds, bring- 
ing their loads of oak and walnut from the country, 
as the slow-swinging oxen trailed them along over 
the complaining snow, in the cold, brown light of 
early morning. Lying in bed and listening to their 
dreary music had a pleasure in it akin to the Lucre- 
tian luxury, or that which Byron speaks of as to be 
enjoyed in looking on at a battle by one " who hath 
no friend, no brother there." 

There was another sound, in itself so sweet, and 
so connected with one of those simple and curious 
superstitions of childhood of which I have spoken, 
that I can never cease to cherish a sad sort of love 
for it. — Let me tell the superstitious fancy first. 
The Puritan " Sabbath," as everybody knows, began 
at " sundown " on Saturday evening. To such obser- 
vance of it I was born and bred. As the large, 
round disk of day declined, a stillness, a solemnity, a 
somewhat melancholy hush came over us all. It was 
time for work to cease, and for playthings to be put 
away. The world of active life passed into the shadow 
of an eclipse, not to emerge until the sun should sink 
again beneath the horizon. 

It was in this stillness of the world without and of 
the soul within that the pulsating lullaby of the even- 



214 THE AUTOCRAT 

ing crickets used to make itself most distinctly heard, 
— so that I well remember I used to think that the 
purring of these little creatures, which mingled with 
the batrachian hymns from the neighboring swamp, 
was peculiar to Saturday evenings. I don't know 
that anything could give a clearer idea of the quieting 
and subduing effect of the old habit of observance of . 
what was considered holy time, than this strange, 
childish fancy. 

Yes, and there was still another sound which 
mingled its solemn cadences with the waking and 
sleeping dreams of my boyhood. It was heard only 
at times, — a deep, muffled roar, which rose and fell, 
not loud, but vast, — a whistling boy would have 
drowned it for his next neighbor, but it must have 
been heard over the space of a hundred square miles. 
I used to wonder what this might be. Could it be 
the roar of the thousand wheels and the ten thousand 
footsteps jarring and trampling along the stones of 
the neighboring city ? That w r ould be continuous ; 
but this, as I have said, rose and fell in regular 
rhythm. I remember being told, and I suppose this 
to have been the true solution, that it was the sound 
of the waves, after a high wind, breaking on the long 
beaches many miles distant. I should really like to 
know whether any observing people living ten miles, 
more or less, inland from long beaches, — in such 
a town, for instance, as Cantabridge, in the eastern 
part of the Territory of the Massachusetts, — have 
ever observed any such sound, and whether it was 
rightly accounted for as above. 

Mingling with these inarticulate sounds in the low 
murmur of memory, are the echoes of certain voices 
I have heard at rare intervals. I grieve to say it, but 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 21 5 

our people. I think, have not generally agreeable 
voices. The marrowy organisms, with skins that 
shed water like the backs of ducks, with smooth sur- 
faces neatly padded beneath, and velvet linings to 
their singing-pipes, are not so common among us as 
that other pattern of humanity with angular outlines 
and plane surfaces, arid integuments, hair like the 
fibrous covering of a cocoa-nut in gloss and supple- 
ness as well as color, and voices at once thin and 
strenuous, — acidulous enough to produce efferves- 
cence with alkalis, and stridulous enough to sing duets 
with the katydids. I think our conversational so- 
prano, as sometimes overheard in the cars, arising 
from a group of young persons, who may have taken 
the train at one of our great industrial centres, for 
instance, — young persons of the female sex, we will 
say, who have bustled in, full dressed, engaged in 
loud strident speech, and who, after free discussion, 
have fixed on two or more double seats, which hav- 
ing secured, they proceed to eat apples and hand round 
daguerreotypes, — I say, I think the conversational 
soprano, heard under these circumstances, would not 
be among the allurements the old Enemy would put 
in requisition, were he getting up a new temptation 
of St. Anthony. 

There are sweet voices among us, we all know, and 
voices not musical, it may be, to those who hear them 
for the first time, yet sweeter to us than any we shall 
hear until we listen to some warbling angel in the over- 
ture to that eternity of blissful harmonies we hope to 
enjoy. But why should I tell lies ? If my friends love 
me, it is because I try to tell the truth. I never heard 
but two voices in my life that frightened me by their 
sweetness. 



2l6 THE AUTOCRAT 

— Frightened you? — said the schoolmistress. — 
Yes, frightened me. They made me feel as if there 
might be constituted a creature with such a chord in 
her voice to some string in another's soul, that, if she 
but spoke, he would leave all and follow her, though 
it were into the jaws of Erebus. Our only chance to 
keep our wits is, that there are so few natural chords 
between others 1 voices and this string in our souls, and 
that those which at first may have jarred a little, by- 
and-by come into harmony with it. — But I tell you 
this is no fiction. You may call the story of Ulysses 
and the Sirens a fable, but what will you say to 
Mario and the poor lady who followed him? 

— Whose were those two voices that bewitched me 
so? — They both belonged to German women. One 
was a chambermaid, not otherwise fascinating. The 
key of my room at a certain great hotel was missing, 
and this Teutonic maiden was summoned to give in- 
formation respecting it. The simple soul was evi- 
dently not long from her mother-land, and spoke with 
sweet uncertainty of dialect. But to hear her wonder 
and lament and suggest, with soft, liquid inflexions, 
and low, sad murmurs, in tones as full of serious ten- 
derness for the fate of the lost key as if it had been a 
child that had strayed from its mother, w 7 as so winning, 
that, had her features and figure been as delicious 
as her accents, — if she had looked like the marble 
Clytie, for instance, — why, all I can say is — 

[The schoolmistress opened her eyes so wide, that I 
stopped short.] 

I was only going to say that I should have drowned 
myself. For Lake Erie was close by, and it is so 
much better to accept asphyxia, which takes only three 
minutes by the watch, than a mesalliance, that lasts 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 217 

fifty years to begin with, and then passes along down 
the line of descent (breaking out in all manner of 
boorish manifestations of feature and manner, which, 
if men were only as short-lived as horses, could be 
readily traced back through the square-roots and the 
cube-roots of the family stem on which you have hung 
the armorial bearings of the De Champignons or the De 
la Morues, until one came to beings that ate with knives 
and said "Haow?"), that no person of right feeling 
could have hesitated for a single moment. 

The second of the ravishing voices I have heard 
was, as I have said, that of another German woman. — 
I suppose I shall ruin myself by saying that such a 
voice could not have come from any Americanized 
human being. 

— What was there in it? — said the schoolmistress, 
— and, upon my word, her tones were so very musical, 
that I almost wished I had said three voices instead 
of two, and not made the unpatriotic remark above 
reported. — Oh, I said, it had so much woman in it, — 
muliebrity, as well as femineity : — no self-assertion, 
such as free suffrage introduces into every word and 
movement ; large, vigorous nature, running back to 
those huge-limbed Germans of Tacitus, but subdued 
by the reverential training and tuned by the kindly 
culture of fifty generations. Sharp business habits, a 
lean soil, independence, enterprise, and east winds, are 
not the best things for the larynx. Still, you hear 
noble voices among us, — I have known families 
famous for them, — but ask the first person you meet 
a question, and ten to one there is a hard, sharp, 
metallic, matter-of-business clink in the accents of the 
answer, that produces the effect of one of those bells 
which small trades-people connect with their shop- 



2l8 THE AUTOCRAT 

doors, and which spring upon your ear with such 
vivacity, as you enter, that your first impulse is to 
retire at once from the precincts. 

— Ah, but I must not forget that dear little child I 
saw and heard in a French hospital. Between two and 
three years old. Fell out of her chair and snapped 
both thigh-bones. Lying in bed, patient, gentle. 
Rough students round her, some in white aprons, 
looking fearfully business-like ; but the child placid, 
perfectly still. I spoke to her, and the blessed little 
creature answered me in a voice of such heavenly 
sweetness, with that reedy thrill in it which you have 
heard in the thrush's even-song, that I hear it at this 
moment, while I am writing, so many, many years 
afterwards. — Cest tout comme tin serin, said the 
French student at my side. 

These are the voices which struck the key-note of 
my conceptions as to what the sounds we are to hear 
in heaven will be, if we shall enter through one of 
the twelve gates of pearl. There must be other things 
besides aerolites that wander from their own spheres 
to ours ; and when we speak of celestial sweetness, 
or beauty, we may be nearer the literal truth than we 
dream. If mankind generally are the shipwrecked 
survivors of some pre-Adamitic cataclysm, set adrift 
in these little open boats of humanity to make one 
more trial to reach the shore, — as some grave theolo- 
gians have maintained, — if, in plain English, men are 
the ghosts of dead devils, who have " died into life," 
(to borrow an expression from Keats,) and walk the 
earth in a suit of living rags which lasts three or four 
score summers, — why, there must have been a few 
good spirits sent to keep them company, and these 
sweet voices I speak of must belong to them. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 219 

— I wish you could once hear my sister's voice — 
said the schoolmistress. 

If it is like yours, it must be a pleasant one, — ■ 
said I. 

I never thought mine was anything, — said the 
schoolmistress. 

How should you know? — said I. — People never 
hear their own voices, — any more than they see their 
own faces. There is not even a looking-glass for the 
voice. Of course, there is something audible to us 
when we speak ; but that something is not our own 
voice as it is known to all our acquaintances. I think, 
if an image spoke to us in our own tones, we should 
not know them in the least. — How pleasant it would 
be, if in another state of being we could have shapes 
like our former selves for playthings, — we standing 
outside or inside of them, as we liked, and they being 
to us just what we used to be to others ! 

— I wonder if there will be nothing like what we 
call "play," after our earthly toys are broken, — said 
the schoolmistress. 

Hush, — said I, — what will the divinity-student 
say? 

[ I thought she was hit, that time ; — but the shot 
must have gone over her, or on one side of her ; she 
did not flinch.] 

Oh, — said the schoolmistress, — he must look out 
for my sister's heresies ; I am afraid he will be too 
busy with them to take care of mine. 

Do you mean to say, — said I, — that it is your sis- 
ter whom that student — 

[The young fellow commonly known as John, who 
had been sitting on the barrel, smoking, jumped ofr 
just then, kicked over the barrel, gave it a push with 



220 THE AUTOCRAT 

his foot that set it rolling, and stuck his saucy-looking 
face in at the window so as to cut my question off in 
the middle ; and the schoolmistress leaving the room 
a few minutes afterwards, I did not have a chance to 
finish it. 

The young fellow came in and sat down in a chair, 
putting his heels on the top of another. 

Pooty girl, — said he. 

A fine young lady, — I replied. 

Keeps a fust-rate school, according to accounts, — 
said he, — teaches all sorts of things, — Latin and 
Italian and music. Folks rich once, — smashed up. 
She went right ahead as smart as if she 'd been born 
to work. That 's the kind o ? girl I go for. I 'd marry 
her, only two or three other girls would drown them- 
selves, if I did. 

I think the above is the longest speech of this 
young fellow's which I have put on record. I do not 
like to change his peculiar expressions, for this is one 
of those cases in which the style is the man, as M. de 
Buffon says. The fact is, the young fellow is a 
good-hearted creature enough, only too fond of his 
jokes, — and if it were not for those heat-lightning 
winks on one side of his face, I should not mind his 
fun much.] 

[Some days after this, when the company were 
together again, I talked a little.] 

— I don't think I have a genuine hatred for any- 
body. I am well aware that I differ herein from the 
sturdy English moralist and the stout American tra- 
gedian. I don't deny that I hate the sight of certain 
people ; but the qualities which make me tend to hate 
the man himself are such as I am so much disposed 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 221 

to pity, that, except under immediate aggravation, I 
feel kindly enough to the worst of them. It is such a 
sad thing to be born a sneaking fellow, so much worse 
than to inherit a hump-back or a couple of club-feet, 
that I sometimes feel as if we ought to love the crip- 
pled souls, if I may use this expression, with a certain 
tenderness which we need not waste on noble natures. 
One who is born with such congenital incapacity that 
nothing can make a gentleman of him, is entitled, not 
to our wrath, but to our profoundest sympathy. But 
as we cannot help hating the sight of these people, 
just as we do that of physical deformities, we gradu- 
ally eliminate them from our society, — we love them, 
but open the window and let them go." By the time 
decent people reach middle age they have weeded 
their circle pretty well of these unfortunates, unless 
they have" a taste for such animals : in which case, no 
matter what their position may be, there is some- 
thing, you may be sure, in their natures akin to that 
of their wretched parasites. 

— The divinity-student wished to know what I 
thought of affinities, as well as antipathies ; did I 
believe in love at first sight ? 

Sir, — said I, — all men love all women. That is 
the ftrima-facie aspect of the case. The Court of 
Nature assumes the law to be, that all men do so ; 
and the individual man is bound to show cause why 
he does not love any particular woman. A man, says 
one of my old black-letter law-books, may show 
divers good reasons, as thus : He hath not seen the 
person named in the indictment ; she is of tender 
age, or the reverse of that ; she hath certain personal 
disqualifications, — as, for instance, she is a black- 
amoor, or hath an ill-favored countenance ; or, his 



222 THE AUTOCRAT 

capacity of loving being limited, his affections are 
engrossed by a previous comer; and so of other condi- 
tions. Not the less is it true that he is bound by duty 
and inclined by nature to love each and every woman. 
Therefore it is that each woman virtually summons 
every man to show cause why he doth not love her. 
This is not by written document, or direct speech, for 
the most part, but by certain signs of silk, gold, and 
other materials, which say to all men, — Look on me 
and love, as in duty bound. Then the man pleadeth his 
special incapacity, whatsoever that may be, — as, for 
instance, impecuniosity, or that he hath one or many 
wives in his household, or that he is of mean figure, 
or small capacity ; of which reasons, it may be noted, 
that the first is, according to late decisions, of chiefest 
authority. — So far the old law-book. But there is a 
note from an older authority, saying that every 
woman doth also love each and every man, except 
there be some good reason to the contrary ; and a 
very observing friend of mine, a young unmarried 
clergyman, tells me, that, so far as his experience 
goes, he has reason to think the ancient author had 
fact to justify his statement . 

I '11 tell you how it is with the pictures of women we 
fall in love with at first sight. 

— We aVt talking about pictures, — said the land- 
lady's daughter, — we Ye talking about women. 

I understood that we were speaking of love at 
sight, — I remarked, mildly. — Now, as all a man 
knows about a woman whom he looks at is just what 
a picture as big as a copper, or a " nickel," rather, at 
the bottom of his eye can teach him, I think I am 
right in saying we are talking about the pictures of 
women. — Well, now, the reason why a man is not 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 223 

desperately in love with ten thousand women at once 
is just that which prevents all our portraits being dis- 
tinctly seen upon that wall. They all are painted 
there by reflection from our faces, but because all of 
them are painted on each spot, and each on the same 
surface, and many other objects at the same time, no 
one is seen as a picture. But darken a chamber and 
let a single pencil of rays in through a key-hole, then 
you have a picture on the wall. We never fall in 
love with a woman in distinction from women, until 
we can get an image of her through a pin-hole ; 
and then we can see nothing else, and nobody but 
ourselves can see the image in our mental camera- 
obscura. 

— My friend, the Poet, tells me he has to leave 
town whenever the anniversaries come round. 

What 's the difficulty? — Why, they all want him to 
get up and make speeches, or songs, or toasts ; which 
is just the very thing he does n't want to do. He is 
an old story, he says, and hates to show on these 
occasions. But they tease him, and coax him, and 
can't do without him, and feel all over his poor 
weak head until they get their fingers on the fonta- 
nelle, (the Professor will tell you what this means, — 
he says the one at the top of the head always remains 
open in poets,) until, by gentle pressure on that soft, 
pulsating spot, they stupefy him to the point of 
acquiescence. 

There are times, though, he says, when it is a 
pleasure, before going to some agreeable meeting, to 
rush out into one's garden and clutch up a handful 
of what grows there, — weeds and violets together, — 
not cutting them off, but pulling them up by the roots 
with the brown earth they grow in sticking to them. 



224 THE AUTOCRAT 

That 's his idea of a post-prandial performance. Look 
here, now. These verses I am going to read you, he 
tells me, were pulled up by the roots just in that way, 
the other day. — Beautiful entertainment, — names 
there on the plates that flow from all English-speak- 
ing tongues as familiarly as and or the ; entertainers 
known wherever good poetry and fair title-pages 
are held in esteem ; guest a kind-hearted, modest, 
genial, hopeful poet, who sings to the hearts of his 
countrymen, the British people, the songs of good 
cheer which the better days to come, as all honest 
souls trust and believe, will turn into the prose 
of common life. My friend, the Poet, says you must 
not read such a string of verses too literally. If he 
trimmed it nicely below, you would n^ see the roots, 
he says, and he likes to keep them, and a little of the 
soil clinging to them. 

This is the farewell my friend, the Poet, read to his 
and our friend, the Poet : — 

A GOOD TIME GOING! 

Brave singer of the coming time, 

Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, 
Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, 

The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, 
Good-bye ! Good-bye ! — Our hearts and hands, 

Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, 
Cry, God be with him, till he stands 

His feet among the English daisies ! 

'T is here we part ; — for other eyes 
The busy deck, the fluttering streamer, 

The dripping arms that plunge and rise, 
The waves in foam, the ship in tremor, 

The kerchiefs waving from the pier, 
The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 225 

The deep blue desert, lone and drear, 
With heaven above and home before him ! 

His home ! — the Western giant smiles, 

And twirls the spotty globe to find it ; — 
This little speck the British Isles? 

'T is but a freckle, — never mind it ! — 
He laughs, and all his prairies roll, 

Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles, 
And ridges stretched from pole to pole 

Heave till they crack their iron knuckles ! 

But memory blushes at the sneer, 

And Honor turns with frown defiant. 
And Freedom leaning on her spear, 

Laughs louder than the laughing giant : — 
" An islet is a world," she said, 

11 When glory with its dust has blended, 
And Britain keeps her noble dead 

Till earth and seas and skies are rended ! " 

Beneath each swinging forest -bough 

Some arm as stout in death reposes, — 
From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow 

Her valor's life-blood runs in roses ; 
Nay, let our brothers of the West 

Write smiling in their florid pages, 
One-half her soil has walked the rest 

In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages ! 

Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp, 

From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather, 
The British oak with rooted grasp 

Her slender handful holds together ; — 
With cliffs of white and bowers of green, 

And Ocean narrowing to caress her, 
And hills and threaded streams between, — 

Our little mother isle, God bless her ! 

In earth's broad temple where we stand, 
Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us, 



226 THE AUTOCRAT 

We hold the missal in our hand, 

Bright with the lines our Mother taught us; 

Where'er its blazoned page betrays 
The glistening links of gilded fetters, 

Behold, the half-turned leaf displays 
Her rubric stained in crimson letters ! 

Enough ! To speed a parting friend 

'T is vain alike to speak and listen ; — 
Yet stay, — these feeble accents blend 

With rays of light from eyes that glisten. 
Good-bye ! once more, — and kindly tell 

In words of peace the young world's story, — 
And say, besides, — we love too well 

Our mother's soil, our father's glory ! 

When my friend, the Professor, found that my 
. friend, the Poet, had been coming out in this full- 
blown style, he got a little excited, as you may have 
seen a canary, sometimes, when another strikes up. 
The Professor says he knows he can lecture, and 
thinks he can write verses. At any rate, he has 
often tried, and now he was determined to try again. 
So when some professional friends of his called him 
up, one day, after a feast of reason and a regular 
"freshet" of soul which had lasted two or three 
hours, he read them these verses. He introduced 
them with a few remarks, he told me, of which the 
only one he remembered was this : that he had rather 
write a single line which one among them should 
think worth remembering than set them ali laughing 
with a string of epigrams. It was all right, I domt 
doubt ; at any rate, that was his fancy then, and per- 
haps another time he may be obstinately hilarious ; 
however, it may be that he is growing graver, for time 
is a fact so long as clocks and watches continue to 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 227 

go, and a cat can't be a kitten always, as the old 
gentleman opposite said the other day. 

You must listen to this seriously, for I think the 
Professor was very much in earnest when he wrote 
it: — 

THE TWO ARMIES. 

As Life's unending column pours, 
Two marshalled hosts are seen, — 

Two armies on the trampled shores 
That Death flows black between. 

One marches to the drum-beat's roll, 
The wide-mouthed clarion's bray, 

And bears upon a crimson scroll, 
" Our glory is to slay." 

One moves in silence by the stream, 

With sad, yet watchful eyes, 
Calm as the patient planet's gleam 

That walks the clouded skies. 

Along its front no sabres shine, 

No blood-red pennons w r ave ; 
Its banner bears the single line, 

" Our duty is to save." 

For those no death-bed's lingering shade ; 

At Honor's trumpet-call, 
With knitted brow and lifted blade 

In Glory's arms they fall. 

For these no clashing falchions bright, 

No stirring battle-cry ; 
The bloodless stabber calls by night, — 

Each answers, " Here am I ! " 

For those the sculptor's laurelled bust, 

The builder's marble piles, 
The anthems pealing o'er their dust 

Through long cathedral aisles. 



228 AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

For these the blossom-sprinkled turf 

That floods the lonely graves, 
When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf 

In flowery-foaming waves. 

Two paths lead upward from below, 

And angels wait above, 
Who count each burning life-drop's flow, 

Each falling tear of Love. 

Though from the Hero's bleeding breast 

Her pulses Freedom drew, 
Though the white lilies in her crest 

Sprang from that scarlet dew, — 

While Valor's haughty champions wait 

Till all their scars are shown, 
Love walks unchallenged through the gate, 

To sit beside the Throne ! 



X. 

[The schoolmistress came down with a rose in her 
hair, — a fresh June rose. She has been walking 
early ; she has brought back two others, — one on 
each cheek. 

I told her so, in some such pretty phrase as I could 
muster for the occasion. Those two blush-roses I 
just spoke of turned into a couple of damasks. I sup- 
pose all this went .through my mind, for this was 
what I went on to say : — ] 

I love the damask rose best of all. The flowers 
our mothers and sisters used to love and cherish, 
those which grow beneath our eaves and by our 
doorstep, are the ones we always love best. If the 
Houyhnhnms should ever catch me, and, finding me 
particularly vicious and unmanageable, send a man- 
tamer to Rareyfy me, 1 11 tell you what drugs he would 
have to take and how he would have to use them. 
Imagine yourself reading a number of the Houyhnhnm 
" Gazette," giving an account of such an experiment. 

" MAN-TAMING EXTRAORDINARY. 

a The soft-hoofed semi-quadruped recently cap- 
tured was subjected to the art of our distinguished 
man-tamer in presence of a numerous assembly. 
The animal was led in by two stout ponies, closely 
confined by straps to prevent his sudden and dan- 
gerous tricks of shoulder-hitting and foot-striking. 
229 



23O THE AUTOCRAT 

His countenance expressed the utmost degree of 
ferocity and cunning. 

" The operator took a handful of budding lilac- 
leaves, and crushing them slightly between his hoofs, 
so as to bring out their peculiar fragrance, fastened 
them to the end of a long pole and held them 
towards the creature. Its expression changed in an 
instant, — it drew in their fragrance eagerly, and 
attempted to seize them with its soft split hoofs. 
Having thus quieted his suspicious subject, the opera- 
tor proceeded to tie a blue hyacinth to the end of the 
pole and held it out towards the wild animal. The 
effect was magical. Its eyes filled as if with rain- 
drops, and its lips trembled as it pressed them to the 
flower. After this it was perfectly quiet, and brought 
a measure of corn to the man-tamer, without showing 
the least disposition to strike with the feet or hit 
from the shoulder." 

That will do for the Houyhnhnm "Gazette.'" — Do 
you ever wonder why poets talk so much about 
flowers? Did you ever hear of a poet who did not 
talk about them? Don't you think a poem, which, 
for the sake of being original, should leave them out, 
would be like those verses where the letter a or e or 
some other is omitted? No, — they will bloom over 
and over again in poems as in the summer fields, to 
the end of time, always old and always new. Why 
should we be more shy of repeating ourselves than 
the spring be tired of blossoms or the night of stars ? 
Look at Nature. She never wearies of saying over 
her floral pater-noster. In the crevices of Cyclopean 
walls, — in the dust where men lie, dust also, — on 
the mounds that bury huge cities, the wreck of Nin- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 23 1 

eveh and the Babel-heap, — still that same sweet 
prayer and benediction. The Amen! of Nature is 
always a flower. 

Are you tired of my trivial personalities, — those 
splashes and streaks of sentiment, sometimes per- 
haps of sentimentality, which you may see when I 
show you my heart's corolla as if it were a tulip? 
Pray, do not give yourself the trouble to fancy me 
an idiot whose conceit it is to treat himself as an 
exceptional being. It is because you are just like 
me that I talk and know that you will listen. We 
are all splashed and streaked with sentiments, — not 
with precisely the same tints, or in exactly the same 
patterns, but by the same hand and from the same 
palette. 

I don't believe any of you happen to have just the 
same passion for the blue hyacinth which I have, — 
very certainly not for the crushed lilac-leaf-buds ; 
many of you do not know how sweet they are. You 
love the smell of the sweet-fern and the bayberry 
leaves, I don't doubt ; but I hardly think that the last 
bewitches you with young memories as it does me. 
For the same reason I come back to damask roses 
after having raised a good many of the rarer varieties. 
I like to go to operas and concerts, but there are queer 
little old homely sounds that are better than music to 
me. However, I suppose it 's foolish to tell such things. 

— It is pleasant to be foolish at the right time, — 
said the divinity-student ; — saying it, however, in one 
of the dead languages, which I think are unpopular 
for summer-reading, and therefore do not bear quota- 
tion as such. 

Well, now, — said I, — suppose a good, clean, whole- 
some-looking countryman's cart stops opposite my 



232 THE AUTOCRAT 

door. — Do I want any huckleberries? — If I do not, 
there are those that do. Thereupon my soft -voiced 
handmaid bears out a large tin pan, and then the 
wholesome countryman, heaping the peck-measure, 
spreads his broad hands around its lower arc to confine 
the wild and frisky berries, and so they run nimbly along 
the narrowing channel until they tumble rustling down 
in a black cascade and tinkle on the resounding metal 
beneath. — I won't say that this rushing huckleberry 
hail-storm has not more music for me than the "Anvil 
Chorus." 

— I wonder how my great trees are coming on this 
summer? 

— Where are your great trees, Sir? — said the 
divinity-student. 

Oh, all round about New England. I call all trees 
mine that I have put my wedding-ring on, and I have 
as many tree-wives as Brigham Young has human 
ones. 

— One set's as green as the other, — exclaimed a 
boarder, who has never been identified. 

They 're all Bloomers, — said the young fellow 
called John. 

[I should have rebuked this trifling with language, 
if our landlady's daughter had not asked me just then 
what I meant by putting my wedding-ring on a tree.] 

Why, measuring it with my thirty-foot tape, my 
dear, — said I, — I have worn a tape almost out on the 
rough barks of our old New England elms, and other 
big trees. — Don't you want to hear me talk trees a 
little now? That is one of my specialties. 

[So they all agreed that they should like to hear me 
talk about trees.] 

I want you to understand, in the first place, that I 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 233 

have a most intense, passionate fondness for trees in 
general, and have had several romantic attachments 
to certain trees in particular. Now, if you expect me 
to hold forth in a " scientific " way about my tree-loves, 

— to talk, for instance, of the Ulmus Americana, and 
describe the ciliated edges of its samara, and all that, 

— you are an anserine individual, and I must refer you 
to a dull friend who will discourse to you of such mat- 
ters. What should you think of a lover who should 
describe the idol of his heart in the language of 
science, thus : Class, Mammalia ; Order, Primate ; 
Genus, Homo ; Species, Europeus ; Variety, Brown ; 
Individual, Ann Eliza ; Dental Formula, 

.2—2 1 — 1 2 — 2 3 — 3 
z c ^ m -, 

2 — 2 I — 1^2 — 2 3 — 3 

and so on? 

No, my friends, I shall speak of trees as we see 
them, love them, adore them in the fields, where they 
are alive, holding their green sun-shades over our 
heads, talking to us with their hundred thousand 
whispering tongues, looking down on us with that 
sweet meekness which belongs to huge, but limited 
organisms, — which one sees in the brown eyes of 
oxen, but most in the patient posture, the out- 
stretched arms, and the heavy-drooping robes of these 
vast beings endowed with life, but not with soul, 

— which outgrow us and outlive us, but stand help- 
less, — poor things ! — while Nature dresses and un- 
dresses them, like so many full-sized, but under- 
witted children. 

Did you ever read old Daddy Gilpin? Slowest 
of men, even of English men ; yet delicious in his 
slowness, as is the light of a sleepy eye in woman. 
I always supposed " Dr. Syntax " was written to make 



234 THE AUTOCRAT 

fun of him. I have a whole set of his works, and am 
very proud of it, with its gray paper, and open type, 
and long ff, and orange-juice landscapes. The Pere 
Gilpin had the kind of science I like in the study 
of Nature, — a little less observation than White of 
Selborne, but a little more poetry. — Just think of 
applying the Linnaean system to an elm ! Who 
cares how many stamens or pistils that little brown 
flower, which comes out before the leaf, may have to 
classify it by? What we want is the meaning, the 
character, the expression of a tree, as a kind and as an 
individual. 

There is a mother-idea in each particular kind of 
tree, which, if well marked, is probabJy embodied in 
the poetry of every language. Take the oak, for 
instance, and we find it always standing as a type 
of strength and endurance. I wonder if you ever 
thought of the single mark of supremacy which dis- 
tinguishes this tree from all our other forest-trees? 
All the rest of them shirk the work of resisting grav- 
ity ; the oak alone defies it. It chooses the horizontal 
direction for its limbs, so that their whole w r eight may 
tell, — and then stretches them out fifty or sixty feet, 
so that the strain may be mighty enough to be worth 
resisting. You will find, that, in passing from the 
extreme downward droop of the branches of the 
weeping-willow to the extreme upward inclination of 
those of the poplar, they sweep nearly half a circle. 
At 90 the oak stops short ; to slant upward another 
degree would mark infirmity of purpose ; to bend 
downwards, weakness of organization. The American 
elm betrays something of both ; yet sometimes, as we 
shall see, puts on a certain resemblance to its sturdier 
neighbor. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 235 

It won't do to be exclusive in our taste about trees. 
There is hardly one of them which has not peculiar 
beauties in some fitting place for it. I remember a 
tall poplar of monumental proportions and aspect, 
a vast pillar of glossy green, placed on the summit 
of a lofty hill, and a beacon to all the country round. 
A native of that region saw T fit to build his house very 
near it, and, having a fancy that it might blow down 
some time or other, and exterminate himself and any 
incidental relatives who might be "stopping 1 ' or 
"tarrying" with him, — also laboring under the de- 
lusion that human life is under all circumstances to 
be preferred to vegetable existence, — had the great 
poplar cut down. It is so easy to say, " It is only 
a poplar ! " and so much harder to replace its living 
cone than to build a granite obelisk! 

I must tell you about some of my tree-wives. I 
was at one period of my life much devoted to the 
young lady-population of Rhode Island, a small, but 
delightful State in the neighborhood of Pawtucket. 
The number of inhabitants being not very large, I had 
leisure, during my visits to the Providence Plantations, 
to inspect the face of the country in the intervals 
of more fascinating studies of physiognomy. I heard 
some talk of a great elm a short distance from the 
locality just mentioned. " Let us see the great elm,' 1 
— I said, and proceeded to find it, — knowing that it 
was on a certain farm in a place called Johnston, if I 
remember rightly. I shall never forget my ride and 
my introduction to the great Johnston elm. 

I always tremble for a celebrated tree when I ap- 
proach it for the first time. Provincialism has no scale 
of excellence in man or vegetable ; it never knows a 
first-rate article of either kind when it has it, and 



236 THE AUTOCRAT 

is constantly taking second and third rate ones foi 
Nature's best. I have often fancied the tree was afraid 
of me, and that a sort of shiver came over it as over 
a betrothed maiden when she first stands before the 
unknown to whom she has been plighted. Before 
the measuring-tape the proudest tree of them all quails 
and shrinks into itself. All those stories of four or five 
men stretching their arms around it and not touching 
each other's fingers, of one's pacing the shadow at 
noon and making it so many hundred feet, die upon 
its leafy lips in the presence of the awful ribbon which 
has strangled so many false pretensions. 

As I rode along the pleasant way, watching eagerly 
for the object of my journey, the rounded tops of 
the elms rose from time to time at the road-side. 
Wherever one looked taller and fuller than the rest, 
I asked myself, — " Is this it?" But as I drew 
nearer, they grew smaller, — or it proved, perhaps, 
that two standing in a line had looked like one, and 
so deceived me. At last, all at once, when I was 
not thinking of it, — I declare to you it makes my 
flesh creep when I think of it now, — all at once I 
saw a great, green cloud swelling in the horizon, so 
vast, so symmetrical, of such Olympian majesty and 
imperial supremacy among the lesser forest-growths, 
that my heart stopped short, then jumped at my ribs 
as a hunter springs at a five-barred gate, and I felt 
all through me, without need of uttering the words, — 
" This is it ! " 

You will find this tree described, with many others, 
in the excellent Report upon the Trees and Shrubs 
of Massachusetts. The author has given my friend 
the Professor credit for some of his measurements, 
but measured this tree himself, carefully. It is a 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 237 

grand elm for size of trunk, spread of limbs, and 
muscular development, — one of the first, perhaps the 
first, of the first class of New England elms. 

The largest actual girth I have ever found at five 
feet from the ground is in the great elm lying a stone's 
throw or two north of the main road (if my points 
of compass are right) in Springfield. But this has 
much the appearance of having been formed by the 
union of two trunks growing side by side. 

The West-Springfield elm and one upon Northamp- 
ton meadows, belong also to the first class of trees. 

There is a noble old wreck of an elm at Hatfield, 
which used to spread its claws out over a circumfer- 
ence of thirty-five feet or more before they covered the 
foot of its bole up with earth. This is the American 
elm most like an oak of any I have ever seen. 

The Sheffield elm is equally remarkable for size and 
perfection of form. I have seen nothing that comes 
near it in Berkshire County, and few to compare with 
it anywhere. I am not sure that I remember any 
other first-class elms in New England, but there may 
be many. 

— What makes a first-class elm? — Why, size, in 
the first place, and chiefly. Anything over twenty 
feet of clear girth, five feet above the ground, and 
with a spread of branches a hundred feet across, may 
claim that title, according to my scale. All of them, 
with the questionable exception of the Springfield tree 
above referred to, stop, so far as my experience goes, 
at about twenty-two or twenty-three feet of girth and 
a hundred and twenty of spread. 

Elms of the second class, generally ranging from 
fourteen to eighteen feet, are comparatively common. 
The queen of them all is that glorious tree near one 



238 THE AUTOCRAT 

of the churches in Springfield. Beautiful and stately 
she is beyond all praise. The "great tree" on Bos- 
ton Common comes in the second rank, as does the 
one at Cohasset, which used to have, and probably 
has still, a head as round as an apple-tree, and that 
at Newburyport, with scores of others which might 
be mentioned. These last two have perhaps been 
over-celebrated. Both, however, are pleasing vege- 
tables. The poor old Pittsfield elm lives on its past 
reputation. A wig of false leaves is indispensable to 
make it presentable. 

[I don't doubt there may be some monster-elm or 
other, vegetating green, but inglorious, in some re- 
mote New England village, which only w r ants a sacred 
singer to make it celebrated. Send us your measure- 
ments, — (certified by the postmaster, to avoid pos- 
sible imposition,) — circumference fLvt feet from soil, 
length of line from bough-end to bough-end, and we 
will see what can be done for you.] 

— I wish somebody would get us up the following 
work : — 

SYLVA NOVANGLICA. 

Photographs of New England Elms and other 
Trees, taken upon the Same Scale of Magnitude. 
With Letter-Press Descriptions, by a Distinguished 
Literary Gentleman. Boston: & Co. 

185.. 

The same camera should be used, — so far as pos- 
sible, — at a fixed distance. Our friend, w T ho has 
given us so many interesting figures in his " Trees of 
America," must not think this Prospectus invades his 
province ; a dozen portraits, with lively descriptions, 
would be a pretty complement to his larger work, 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 239 

which, so far as published, I find excellent. If my 
plan were carried out, and another series of a dozen 
English trees photographed on the same scale, the 
comparison would be charming. 

It has always been a favorite idea of mine to bring 
the life of the Old and the New World face to face, 
by an accurate comparison of their various types of 
organization. We should begin with man, of course ; 
institute a large and exact comparison between the 
development of la pianta umana, as Alfieri called it, 
in different sections of each country, in the different 
callings, at different ages, estimating height, weight, 
force by the dynamometer and the spirometer, and 
finishing off with a series of typical photographs, 
giving the principal national physiognomies. Mr. 
Hutchinson has given us some excellent English data 
to begin with. 

Then I would follow this up by contrasting the 
various parallel forms of life in the two continents. 
Our naturalists have often referred to this inciden- 
tally or expressly ; but the animus of Nature in the 
two half globes of the planet is so momentous a point 
of interest to our race, that it should be made a sub- 
ject of express and elaborate study. Go out with me 
into that walk which we call the Mall, and look at the 
English and American elms. The American elm is 
tall, graceful, slender-sprayed, and drooping as if from 
languor. The English elm is compact, robust, holds 
its branches up, and carries its leaves for weeks 
longer than our own native tree. 

Is this typical of the creative force on the two 
sides of the ocean, or not? Nothing but a care- 
ful comparison through the whole realm of life can 
answer this question. 



240 THE AUTOCRAT 

There is a parallelism without identity in the animal 
and vegetable life of the two continents, which favors 
the task of comparison in an extraordinary manner. 
Just as we have two trees alike in many ways, yet 
not the same, both elms, yet easily distinguishable, 
just so we have a complete flora and a fauna, which, 
parting from the same ideal, embody it with various 
modifications. Inventive power is the only quality of 
which the Creative Intelligence seems to be economi- 
cal ; just as with our largest human minds, that is the 
divinest of faculties, and the one that most exhausts 
the mind which exercises it. As the same patterns 
have very commonly been followed, we can see which 
is worked out in the largest spirit, and determine the 
exact limitations under which the Creator places the 
movement of life in all its manifestations in either 
locality. We should find ourselves in a very false 
position, if it should prove that Anglo-Saxons can't 
live here, but die out, if not kept up by fresh supplies, 
as Dr. Knox and other more or less wise persons have 
maintained. It may turn out the other way, as I 
•have heard one of our literary celebrities argue, — and 
though I took the other side, I liked his best, — that 
the American is the Englishman reinforced. 

— Will you walk out and look at those elms with 
me after breakfast? — I said to the schoolmistress. 

[I am not going to tell lies about it, and say that 
she blushed, — as I suppose she ought to have done, 
at such a tremendous piece of gallantry as that was 
for our boarding-house. On the contrary, she turned 
a little pale, — but smiled brightly and said, — Yes, 
with pleasure, but she must walk towards her school. — 
She went for her bonnet. — The old gentleman oppo- 
site followed her with his eyes, and said he wished 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 24 1 

he was a young fellow. Presently she came down, 
looking very pretty in her half-mourning bonnet, and 
carrying a school-book in her hand.] 

MY FIRST WALK WITH THE SCHOOLMISTRESS. 

This is the shortest way, — she said, as we came to 
a corner. — Then we won't take it, — said I. — The 
schoolmistress laughed a little, and said she was ten 
minutes early, so she could go round. 

We walked under Mr. Paddock's row of English 
elms. The gray squirrels were out looking for their 
breakfasts, and one of them came toward us in light, 
soft, intermittent leaps, until he was close to the rail 
of the burial-ground. He was on a grave with a 
broad blue-slate-stone at its head, and a shrub grow- 
ing on it. The stone said this was the grave of a 
young man who was the son of an Honorable gentle- 
man, and who died a hundred years ago and more. — 
Oh, yes, died, — with a small triangular mark in one 
breast, and another smaller opposite, in his back, 
where another young man's rapier had slid through his 
body ; and so he lay down out there on the Common, 
and was found cold the next morning, with the night- 
dews and the death-dews mingled on his forehead. 

Let us have one look at poor Benjamin's grave, — 
said I. — His bones lie where his body was laid so 
long ago, and where the stone says they lie, — which 
is more than can be said of most of the tenants of 
this and several other burial-grounds. 

[The most accursed act of Vandalism ever com- 
mitted within my knowledge was the uprooting of 
the ancient gravestones in three at least of our city 
burial-grounds, and one at least just outside the 



242 THE AUTOCRAT 

city, and planting them in rows to suit the taste for 
symmetry of the perpetrators. Many years ago, when 
this disgraceful process was going on under my eyes, 
I addressed an indignant remonstrance to a leading 
journal. I suppose it was deficient in literary ele- 
gance, or too warm in its language ; for no notice 
was taken of it, and the hyena-horror was allowed 
to complete itself in the face of daylight. I have 
never got over it. The bones of my own ancestors, 
being entombed, lie beneath their own tablet ; but 
the upright stones have been shuffled about like chess- 
men, and nothing short of the Day of Judgment will 
tell whose dust lies beneath any of those records, 
meant by affection to mark one small spot as sacred 
to some cherished memory. Shame ! shame ! shame ! 
— that is all I can say. It was on public thorough- 
fares, under the eye of authority, that this infamy 
was enacted. The red Indians would have known 
better; the selectmen of an African kraal-village 
would have had more respect for their ancestors. I 
should like to see the gravestones which have been 
disturbed all removed, and the ground levelled, leav- 
ing the flat tombstones ; epitaphs were never famous 
for truth, but the old reproach of u Here Hes n never 
had such a wholesale illustration as in these out- 
raged burial-places, where the stone does lie above, 
and the bones do not lie beneath.] 

Stop before we turn away, and breathe a woman's 
sigh over poor Benjamin's dust. Love killed him, I 
think. Twenty years old, and out there fighting 
another young fellow on the Common, in the cool 
of that old July evening ; — yes, there must have been 
love at the bottom of it. 

The schoolmistress dropped a rosebud she had in 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 243 

her hand, through the rails, upon the grave of Benja- 
min Woodbridge. That was all her comment upon 
what I told her. — How women love Love ! said I ; — 
but she did not speak. 

We came opposite the head of a place or court 
running eastward from the main street. — Look down 
there, — I said, — My friend the Professor lived in that 
house at the left hand, next the further corner, for 
years and years. He died out of it, the other day. — 
Died ? — said the schoolmistress. — Certainly, — said 
I. — We die out of houses, just as we die out of our 
bodies. A commercial smash kills a hundred men's 
houses for them, as a railroad crash kills their mortal 
frames and drives out the immortal tenants. Men 
sicken of houses until at last they quit them, as the 
soul leaves its body when it is tired of its infirmities. 
The body has been called " the house we live in " ; 
the house is quite as much the body we live in. 
Shall I tell you some things the Professor said the 
other day? — Do! — said the schoolmistress. 

A man's body, — said the Professor, — is whatever 
is occupied by his will and his sensibility. The small 
room down there, where I wrote those papers you 
remember reading, was much more a portion of my 
body than a paralytic's senseless and motionless arm 
or leg is of his. 

The soul of a man has a series of concentric en- 
velopes round it, like the core of an onion, or the inner- 
most of a nest of boxes. First, he has his natural 
garment of flesh and blood. Then, his artificial in- 
teguments, with their true skin of solid stuffs, their 
cuticle of lighter tissues, and their variously-tinted 
pigments. Thirdly, his domicile, be it a single cham- 
ber or a stately mansion. And then, the whole visible 



244 THE AUTOCRAT 

world, in which Time buttons him up as in a loose 
outside wrapper. 

You shall observe, — the Professor said, — for, like 
Mr. John Hunter and other great men, he brings in 
that shall with great effect sometimes, — you shall 
observe that a man's clothing or series of envelopes 
does after a certain time mould itself upon his in- 
dividual nature. We know this of our hats, and are 
always reminded of it when we happen to put them 
on wrong side foremost. We soon find that the 
beaver is a hollow cast of the skull, with all its 
irregular bumps and depressions. Just so all that 
clothes a man, even to the blue sky which caps his 
head, — a little loosely, — shapes itself to fit each par- 
ticular being beneath it. Farmers, sailors, astrono- 
mers, poets, lovers, condemned criminals, all find it 
different, according to the eyes with which they 
severally look. 

But our houses shape themselves palpably on our 
inner and outer natures. See a householder breaking 
up and you will be sure of it. There is a shell-fish 
which builds all manner of smaller shells into the 
walls of its own. A house is never a home until we 
have crusted it with the spoils of a hundred lives 
besides those of our own past. See what these are 
and you can tell what the occupant is. 

I had no idea, — said the Professor, — until I pulled 
up my domestic establishment the other day, what 
an enormous quantity of roots I had been making 
during the years I was planted there. Why, there 
was n't a nook or a corner that some fibre had not 
worked its way into ; and when I gave the last 
wrench, each of them seemed to shriek like a man- 
drake, as it broke its hold and came away. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 245 

There is nothing that happens, you know, which 
must not inevitably, and which does not actually, 
photograph itself in every conceivable aspect and in 
all dimensions. The infinite galleries of the Past 
await but one brief process and all their pictures will 
be called out and fixed forever. We had a curious 
illustration of the great fact on a very humble scale. 
When a certain bookcase, long standing in one place, 
for which it was built, was removed, there was the 
exact image on the wall of the whole, and of many of 
its portions. But in the midst of this picture was 
another, — the precise outline of a map which had 
hung on the wall before the bookcase was built. We 
had all forgotten everything about the map until we 
saw its photograph on the wall. Then we remem- 
bered it, as some day or other we may remember a sin 
which has been built over and covered up, when this 
lower universe is pulled away from before the wall of 
Infinity, where the wrong-doing stands self-recorded. 

The Professor lived in that house a long time, — 
not twenty years, but pretty near it. When he en- 
tered that door, two shadows glided over the thresh- 
old ; five lingered in the doorway when he passed 
through it for the last time, — and one of the shadows 
was claimed by its owner to be longer than his own. 
What changes we saw in that quiet place ! Death 
rained through every roof but his ; children came into 
life, grew to maturity, wedded, faded away, threw them- 
selves away ; the whole drama of life was played in 
that stock-company^ theatre of a dozen houses, one 
of which was his, and no deep sorrow or severe 
calamity ever entered his dwelling. Peace be to those 
walls, forever, — the Professor said, — for the many 
pleasant years he has passed within them ! 



246 THE AUTOCRAT 

The Professor has a friend, now living at a dis- 
tance, who has been with him in many of his 
changes of place, and who follows him in imagina- 
tion with tender interest wherever he goes. — In that 
little court, where he lived in gay loneliness so long, — 

— in his autumnal sojourn by the Connecticut, 
where it comes loitering down from its mountain fast- 
nesses like a great lord, swallowing up the small pro- 
prietary rivulets very quietly as it goes, until it gets 
proud and swollen and wantons in huge luxurious 
oxbows about the fair Northampton meadows, and at 
last overflows the oldest inhabitant's memory in prof- 
ligate freshets at Hartford and all along its lower 
shores, — up in that caravansary on the banks of the 
stream where Ledyard launched his log canoe, and the 
jovial old Colonel used to lead the Commencement 
processions, — where blue Ascutney looked down from 
the far distance, and the hills of Beulah, as the Pro- 
fessor always called them, rolled up the opposite hori- 
zon in soft climbing masses, so suggestive of the 
Pilgrim's Heavenward Path that he used to look 
through his old " Dollond " to see if the Shining 
Ones were not within range of sight, — sweet visions, 
sweetest in those Sunday walks which carried them by 
the peaceful common, through the solemn village 
lying in cataleptic stillness under the shadow of the 
rod of Moses, to the terminus of their harmless stroll, 

— the patulous fage, in the Professor's classic dialect, 

— the spreading beech, in more familiar phrase, — 
[stop and breathe here a moment, for the sentence is 
not done yet, and we have another long journey 
before us,] — 

— and again once more up among those other hills 
that shut in the amber-flowing Housatonic, — dark 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 247 

stream, but clear, like the lucid orbs that shine be- 
neath the lids of auburn-haired, sherry-wine-eyed 
demi-blondes, — in the home overlooking the winding 
stream and the smooth, flat meadow; looked down 
upon by wild hills, where the tracks of bears and cata- 
mounts may yet sometimes be seen upon the winter 
snow ; facing the twin summits which rise in the far 
North, the highest waves of the great land-storm 
in all this billowy region, — suggestive to mad fancies 
of the breasts of a half-buried Titaness, stretched 
out by a stray thunderbolt, and hastily hidden away 
beneath the leaves of the forest, — in that home where 
seven blessed summers were passed, which stand in 
memory like the seven golden candlesticks in the 
beatific vision of the holy dreamer, — 

— in that modest dwelling we were just looking 
at, not glorious, yet not unlovely in the youth of its 
drab and mahogany, — full of great and little boys' 
playthings from top to bottom, — in all these summer 
or winter nests he was always at home and always 
welcome. 

This long articulated sigh of reminiscences, — this 
calenture which shows me the maple-shadowed plains 
of Berkshire and the mountain-circled green of Graf- 
ton beneath the salt waves which come feeling their 
way along the wall at my feet, restless and soft-touch- 
ing as blind men's busy fingers, — is for that friend of 
mine who looks into the waters of the Patapsco and 
sees beneath them the same visions which paint them- 
selves for me in the green depths of the Charles. 

— Did I talk all this off to the schoolmistress ? — 
Why, no, — of course not. I have been talking with 
you, the reader, for the last ten minutes. You don't 
think I should expect any woman to listen to such a 



248 THE AUTOCRAT 

sentence as that long one, without giving her a 
chance to put in a word? 

— What did I say to the schoolmistress? — Permit 
me one moment. I don't doubt your delicacy and 
good-breeding ; but in this particular case, as I was 
allowed the privilege of walking alone with a very 
interesting young woman, you must allow me to 
remark, in the classic version of a familiar phrase, 
used by our Master Benjamin Franklin, it is nullum 
tui negotii. 

When the schoolmistress and I reached the school- 
room door, the damask roses I spoke of were so much 
heightened in color by exercise that I felt sure it 
would be useful to her to take a stroll like this every 
morning, and made up my mind I would ask her to 
let me join her again. 



EXTRACT FROM MY PRIVATE JOURNAL. 

(To be burned unread.*) 

I am afraid I have been a fool ; for I have told as 
much of myself to this young person as if she were 
of that ripe and discreet age which invites confidence 
and expansive utterance. I have been low-spirited 
and listless, lately, — it is coffee, I think, — (I observe 
that which is bought ready-ground never affects the 
head,) — and I notice that I tell my secrets too easily 
when I am downhearted. 

There are inscriptions on our hearts, which, like 
that on Dighton Rock, are never to be seen except at 
dead-low tide. 

There is a woman's footstep on the sand at the side 
of my deepest ocean-buried inscription! 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 249 

— Oh, no, no, no! a thousand times, no! — Yet what 
is this which has been shaping itself in my soul? — 
Is it a thought? — is it a dream? — is it a passion? — 
Then I know what comes next. 

— The Asylum stands on a bright and breezy hill ; 
those glazed corridors are pleasant to walk in, in bad 
weather. But there are iron bars to all the windows. 
When it is fair, some of us can stroll outside that 
very high fence. But I never see much life in those 
groups I sometimes meet ; — and then the careful man 
watches them so closely! How I remember that sad 
company I used to pass on fine mornings, when I 
was a schoolboy! — B., with his arms full of yellow 
weeds, — ore from the gold mines which he discov- 
ered long before we heard of California, — Y., born 
to millions, crazed by too much plum-cake, (the boys 
said,) dogged, explosive, — made a Polyphemus of 
my weak-eyed schoolmaster, by a vicious flirt with a 
stick, — (the multi-millionnaires sent him a trifle, it 
was said, to buy another eye with ; but boys are jealous 
of rich folks, and I don't doubt the good people made 
him easy for life,) — how I remember them all ! 

I recollect, as all do, the story of the Hall of Eblis, 
in Vat/tele, and how each shape, as it lifted its 
hand from its breast, showed its heart, — a burning 
coal. The real Hall of Eblis stands on yonder sum- 
mit. Go there on the next visiting-day, and ask that 
figure crouched in the corner, huddled up like those 
Indian mummies and skeletons found buried in the 
sitting posture, to lift its hand, — look upon its heart, 
and behold, not fire, but ashes. — No, I must not 
think of such an ending! Dying would be a much 
more gentlemanly way of meeting the difficulty. 
Make a will and leave her a house or two and some 



2 50 THE AUTOCRAT 

stocks, and other little financial conveniences, to take 
away her necessity for keeping school. — I wonder 
what nice young man's feet would be in my French 
slippers before six months were over! Well, what 
then? If a man really loves a woman, of course he 
would n't marry her for the world, if he were not 
quite sure that he was the best person she could by 
any possibility marry. 

— It is odd enough to read over what I have just 
been writing. — It is the merest fancy that ever was 
in the world. I shall never be married. She will; 
and if she is as pleasant as she has been so far, I will 
give her a silver tea-set, and go and take tea with 
her and her husband, sometimes. No coffee, I hope, 
though, — it depresses me sadly. I feel very miser- 
ably; — they must have been grinding it at home. — 
Another morning walk will be good for me, and I 
don't doubt the schoolmistress will be glad of a little 
fresh air before school. 

— The throbbing flushes of the poetical intermittent 
have been coming over me from time to time of late. 
Did you ever see that electrical experiment which 
consists in passing a flash through letters of gold leaf 
in a darkened room, whereupon some name or legend 
springs out of the darkness in characters of fire? 

There are songs all written out in my soul, which 
I could read, if the flash might pass through them, — 
but the fire must come down from heaven. Ah! but 
what if the stormy nimbus of youthful passion has 
blown by, and one asks for lightning from the ragged 
cirrus of dissolving aspirations, or the silvered cumu- 
lus of sluggish satiety ? I will call on her whom the 
dead poets believed in, whom living ones no longer 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2$\ 

worship, — the immortal maid, who, name her what 
you will, — Goddess, Muse, Spirit of Beauty, — sits by 
the pillow of every youthful poet, and bends over his 
pale forehead until her tresses lie upon his cheek and 
rain their gold into his dreams. 

MUSA. 

O MY lost Beauty ! — hast thou folded quite 

Thy wings of morning light 

Beyond those iron gates 
Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates, 
And Age upon his mound of ashes waits 

To chill our fiery dreams, 
Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams ? 

Leave me not fading in these weeds of care, 

Whose flowers are silvered hair ! — 

Have I not loved thee long, 
Though my young lips have often done thee wrong 
And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song? 

Ah, wilt thou yet return, 
Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn ? 

Come to me ! — I will flood thy silent shrine 

With my soul's sacred wine, 

And heap thy marble floors 
As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores 
In leafy islands walled with madrepores 

And lapped in Orient seas, 
When all their feathery palms toss, plume-like, in the breeze. 

Come to me! — thou shalt feed on honied words, 

Sweeter than song of birds ; — 

No wailing bulbul's throat, 
No melting dulcimer's melodious note, 
When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float, 

Thy ravished sense might soothe 
With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth. 



2 5 2 .4 UTO CRA T OF THE BREAK FA S T- TABLE. 

Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen, 

Sought in those bowers of green 

Where loop the clustered vines 
And the close-clinging dulcamara twines, — 
Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines, 

And Summer's fruited gems, 
And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems. 

Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves, — 

Or stretched by grass-grown graves, 

Whose gray, high-shouldered stones, 
Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns, 
Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones 

Still slumbering where they lay 
While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away. 

Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing ! 

Still let me dream and sing, — 

Dream of that winding shore 
Where scarlet cardinals bloom, — for me no more, — 
The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor, 

And clustering nenuphars 
Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars ! 

Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed ! — 

Come while the rose is red, — 

While blue-eyed Summer smiles 
On the green ripples round yon sunken piles 
Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles, 

And on the sultry air 
The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer! 

Oh, for thy burning lips to fire my brain 

With thrills of wild sweet pain ! — 

On life's autumnal blast, 
Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion-flowers are cast, — 
Once loving thee, we love thee to the last ! — 

Behold thy new-decked shrine, 
And hear once more the voice that breathed " Forever thine 1 " 



XI. 

[The company looked a little flustered one morn- 
ing when I came in, — so much so, that I inquired of 
my neighbor, the divinity-student, what had been 
going on. It appears that the young fellow whom 
they call John had taken advantage of my being a 
little late (I having been rather longer than usual 
dressing that morning) to circulate several questions 
involving a quibble or play upon w r ords, — in short, 
containing that indignity to the human understand- 
ing, condemned in the passages from the distin- 
guished moralist of the last century and the illustri- 
ous historian of the present, which I cited on a 
former occasion, and known as a pun. After break- 
fast, one of the boarders handed me a small roll of 
paper containing some of the questions and their 
answers. I subjoin two or three of them, to show 
what a tendency there is to frivolity and meaningless 
talk in young persons of a certain sort, when not 
restrained by the presence of more reflective natures. 
— It was asked, "Why tertian and quartan fevers 
were like certain short-lived insects.'" Some interest- 
ing physiological relation would be naturally sug- 
, gested. The inquirer blushes to find that the answer 
is in the paltry equivocation, that they skip a day or 
two. — "Why an Englishman must go to the Conti- 
nent to weaken his grog or punch ?" The answer 
proves to have no relation whatever to the temper- 
2 53 



254 THE AUTOCRAT 

ance-movement, as no better reason is given than that 
island- (or, as it is absurdly written, He and) water 
won't mix. But when I came to the next question 
and its answer, I felt that patience ceased to be a 
virtue. "Why an onion is like a piano 1 ' is a query 
that a person of sensibility would be slow to pro- 
pose ; but that in an educated community an indi- 
vidual could be found to answer it in these words, — 
" Because it smell odious," guasi) it 's melodious, — is 
not credible, but too true. I can show you the paper. 

Dear reader, I beg your pardon for repeating such 
things. I know most conversations reported in books 
are altogether above such trivial details, but folly 
will come up at every table as surely as purslain and 
chickweed and sorrel will come up in gardens. This 
young fellow ought to have talked philosophy, I 
know perfectly well ; but he didn't, — he made jokes.] 

I am willing, — I said, — to exercise your ingenuity 
in a rational and contemplative manner. — No, I do 
not proscribe certain forms of philosophical specula- 
tion which involve an approach to the absurd or the 
ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the 
folio of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in 
his famous Disputations, " De Sancto Matrimonio." 
I will therefore turn this levity of yours to profit by 
reading you a rhymed problem, wrought out by my 
friend the Professor. 

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE: 

OR THE WONDERFUL " ONE-HORSE-SHAY." 

A LOGICAL STORY. 

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss-shay, 
That was built in such a logical way 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2$$ 

It ran a hundred years to a day, 
And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay, 
I'll tell you what happened without delay, 
Scaring the parson into fits, 
Frightening people out of their wits, — 
Have you ever heard of that, I say ? 

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. 
Georglus Secundus was then alive, — 
Snuffy old drone from the German hive ! 
That was the year when Lisbon-town 
Saw the earth open and gulp her down, 
And Braddock's army was done so brown, 
Left without a scalp to its crown. 
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day 
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss-shay. 

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, 

There is always somewhere a. weakest spot, — 

In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, 

In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, 

In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,— lurking still 

Find it somewhere you must and will, — 

Above or below, or within or without, — 

And that 's the reason, beyond a doubt, 

A chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out. 

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, 
With an " I dew vum," or an " I teMyeou") 
He would build one shay to beat the taown 
'n* the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun' ; 
It should be so built that it couldn break daown : 
— " Fur," said the Deacon, " 't 's mighty plain 
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain ; 
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain 

Is only jest 
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." 

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk 
Where he could find the strongest oak, 



256 THE AUTOCRAT 

That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, — 

That was for spokes and floor and sills ; 

He sent for lancewood to make the thills; 

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees; 

The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, 

But lasts like iron for things like these ; 

The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," — 

Last of its timber, — they couldn't sell 'em, 

Never an axe had seen their chips, 

And the wedges flew from between their lips, 

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips ; 

Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, 

Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, 

Steel of the finest, bright and blue ; 

Thoroughbrace, bison-skin, thick and wide; 

Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide 

Found in the pit when the tanner died. 

That was the way he " put her through." — 

" There ! " said the Deacon, " naow she '11 dew! " 

Do ! I tell you, I rather guess 

She was a wonder, and nothing less ! 

Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, 

Deacon and deaconess dropped away, 

Children and grand-children — where were they ? 

But there stood the stout old one-hoss-shay 

As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day ! 

Eighteen hundred ; — it came and found 
The Deacon's Masterpiece strong and sound. 
Eighteen hundred increased by ten ; — 
" Hahnsum kerridge " they called it then. 
Eighteen hundred and twenty came ; — 
Running as usual; much the same. 
Thirty and forty at last arrive, 
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE. 

Little of all we value here 

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 

Without both feeling and looking queer. 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2^7 

In fact, there 's nothing that keeps its youth, 

So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 

(This is a moral that runs at large ; 

Take it. — You 're welcome. — No extra charge.) 

First of November, — the Earthquake-day.— 
There are traces of age in the one-hoss-shay, 
A general flavor of mild decay, 
But nothing local, as one may say. 
There could n't be, — for the Deacon's art 
Had made it so like in every part 
That there wasn't a chance for one to start. 
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, 
And the floor was just as strong as the sills, 
And the panels just as strong as the floor, 
And the whippletree neither less nor more, 
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore, 
And spring and axle and hub encore. 
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt 
In another hour it will be worn out! 

First of November, 'Fifty-five ! 

This morning the parson takes a drive. 

Now, small boys, get out of the way ! 

Here comes the wonderful one-horse-shay, 

Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. 

" Huddup! " said the parson. — Off went they. 

The parson was working his Sunday's text, — 
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed 
At what the — Moses — was coming next. 
All at once the horse stood still, 
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. 

— First a shiver, and then a thrill, 
Then something decidedly like a spill, — 
And the parson was sitting upon a rock, 

At half-past nine by the meet'n-house clock, — ■ 
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock ! 

— What do you think the parson found, 
When he got up and stared around ? 



258 THE AUTOCRAT 

The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, 
As if it had been to the mill and ground ! 
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, 
How it went to pieces all at once, — 
All at once and nothing first, — 
Just as bubbles do when they burst. 

End of the wonderful one-hoss-shay. 
Logic is logic. That 's all I say. 

— I think there is one habit, — I said to our com- 
pany a day or two afterwards — worse than that of 
punning. It is the gradual substitution of cant or 
flash terms for words which truly characterize their 
objects. I have known several very genteel idiots 
whose whole vocabulary had deliquesced into some 
half dozen expressions. All things fell into one of 
two great categories, — fast or slow. Man's chief end 
was to be a brick. When the great calamities of life 
overtook their friends, these last were spoken of as 
being a good deal cut up. Nine-tenths of human 
existence were summed up in the single word, bore. 
These expressions come to be the algebraic symbols 
of minds which have grown too weak or indolent to 
discriminate. They are the blank checks of intel- 
lectual bankruptcy ; — you may fill them up with what 
idea you like ; it makes no difference, for there are no 
funds in the treasury upon which they are drawn. 
Colleges and good-for-nothing smoking-clubs are the 
places where these conversational fungi spring up 
most luxuriantly. Don't think I undervalue the 
proper use and application of a cant word or phrase. 
It adds piquancy to conversation, as a mushroom does 
to a sauce. But it is no better than a toadstool, odious 
to the sense and poisonous to the intellect, when it 
spawns itself all over the talk of men and youths 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 259 

capable of talking, as it sometimes does. As we hear 
flash phraseology, it is commonly the dishwater from 
the washings of English dandyism, school-boy or 
full-grown, wrung out of a three-volume novel which 
had sopped it up, or decanted from the pictured urn 
of Mr. Verdant Green, and diluted to suit the pro- 
vincial climate. 

— The young fellow called John spoke up sharply 
and said, it was "rum " to hear me "pitchin 1 into fel- 
lers" for "goin' it in the slang line," when I used all 
the flash words myself just when I pleased. 

— I replied with my usual forbearance. — Certainly, 
to give up the algebraic symbol, because a or b is 
often a cover for ideal nihility, would be unwise. I 
have heard a child laboring to express a certain con- 
dition, involving a hitherto undescribed sensation, 
(as it supposed,) all of which could have been suffi- 
ciently explained by the participle — bored. I have 
seen a country-clergyman, with a one-story intellect 
and a one-horse vocabulary, who has consumed his 
valuable time (and mine) freely in developing an 
opinion of a brother minister's discourse which would 
have been abundantly characterized by a peach- 
down-lipped sophomore in the one word — slow. Let 
us discriminate, and be shy of absolute proscrip- 
tion. I am omniverbivorous by nature and training. 
Passing by such words as are poisonous, I can swal- 
low most others, and chew such as I cannot swallow. 

Dandies are not good for much, but they are good 
for something. They invent or keep in circulation 
those conversational blank checks or counters just 
spoken of, which intellectual capitalists may some- 
times find it worth their while to borrow of them. 
They are useful, too, in keeping up the standard of 



260 THE AUTOCRAT 

dress, which, but for them, would deteriorate, and 
become, what some old fools would have it, a matter 
of convenience, and not of taste and art. Yes, I like 
dandies well enough, — on one condition. 

— What is that, sir? — said the divinity-student. 

— That they have pluck. I find that lies at the 
bottom of all true dandyism. A little boy dressed up 
very fine, who puts his finger in his mouth and takes 
to crying, if other boys make fun of him, looks very 
silly. But if he turns red in the face and knotty in 
the fists, and makes an example of the biggest of his 
assailants, throwing off his fine Leghorn and his 
thickly-buttoned jacket, if necessary, to consummate 
the act of justice, his small toggery takes on the 
splendors of the crested helmet that frightened Asty- 
anax. You remember that the Duke said his dandy 
officers were his best officers. The " Sunday blood," 
the super-superb sartorial equestrian of our annual 
Fast-day, is not imposing or dangerous. But such 
fellows as Brummel and D'Orsay and Byron are not 
to be snubbed quite so easily. Look out for " la 
main de fer sous le gant de velours, 1 ' (which I printed 
in English the other day without quotation marks, 
thinking whether any scarabcEus criticus would add 
this to his globe and roll in glory with it into the 
newspapers, — which he did n't do it, in the charming 
pleonasm of the London language, and therefore I 
claim the sole merit of exposing the same). A good 
many powerful and dangerous people have had a 
decided dash of dandyism about them. There was 
Alcibiades, the " curled son of Clinias," an accom- 
plished young man, but what would be called a 
"swell" in these days. There was Aristoteles, a very 
distinguished writer, of whom you have heard, — a 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 26 1 

i 
philosopher, in short, whom it took centuries to 
learn, centuries to unlearn, and is now going to take 
a generation or more to learn over again. Regular 
dandy, he was. So was Marcus Antonius ; and 
though he lost his game, he played for big stakes, 
and it wasn't his dandyism that spoiled his chance. 
Petrarca was not to be despised as a scholar or poet, 
but he was one of the same sort. So was Sir 
Humphry Davy ; so was Lord Palmerston, formerly, 
if I am not forgetful. Yes, — a dandy is good for 
something as such ; and dandies such as I was just 
speaking of have rocked this planet like a cradle, — 
ay, and left it swinging to this day. — Still, if I were 
you, I would n't go to the tailor's, on the strength of 
these remarks, and run up a long bill which will ren- 
der pockets a superfluity in your next suit. Elegans 
"nascitur, non fit" A man is born a dandy, as he is 
born a poet. There are heads that can't wear hats ; 
there are necks that can't fit cravats ; there are jaws 
that can't fill out collars — (Willis touched this last 
point in one of his earlier ambrotypes, if I remember 
rightly) ; there are tournures nothing can humanize, 
and movements nothing can subdue to the gracious 
suavity or elegant languor or stately serenity which 
belong to different styles of dandyism. 

We are forming an aristocracy, as you may ob- 
serve, in this country, — not a gratia- Dei, nor a jure- 
divino one, — but a de-facto upper stratum of being, 
which floats over the turbid waves of common life 
like the iridescent film you may have seen spreading 
over the water about our wharves, — very splendid, 
though its origin may have been tar, tallow, train-oil, 
or other such unctuous commodities. I say, then, 
we are forming an aristocracy ; and, transitory as its 



262 THE AUTOCRAT 

individual life often is, it maintains itself tolerably, 
as a whole. Of course, money is its corner-stone. 
But now observe this. Money kept for two or three 
generations transforms a race, — I don't mean merely 
in manners and hereditary culture, but in blood and 
bone. Money buys air and sunshine, in which chil- 
dren grow up more kindly, of course, than in close, 
back streets ; it buys country-places to give them 
happy and healthy summers, good nursing, good 
doctoring, and the best cuts of beef and mutton. 
When the spring chickens come to market — I beg 
your pardon, — that is not what I was going to speak 
of. As the young females of each successive season 
come on, the finest specimens among them, other 
things being equal, are apt to attract those who can 
afford the expensive luxury of beauty. The physical 
character of the next generation rises in consequence. 
It is plain that certain families have in this way ac- 
quired an elevated type of face and figure, and that in 
a small circle of city-connections one may sometimes 
find models of both sexes which one of the rural 
counties would find it hard to match from all its town- 
ships put together. Because there is a good deal of 
running down, of degeneration and waste of life, 
among the richer classes, you must not overlook the 
equally obvious fact I have just spoken of, — which 
in one or two generations more will be, I think, much 
more patent than just now. 

The weak point in our chryso-aristocracy is the 
same I have alluded to in connection with cheap 
dandyism. Its thorough manhood, its high-caste 
gallantry, are not so manifest as the plate-glass of its 
windows and the more or less legitimate heraldry of 
its coach-panels. It is very curious to observe of 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 263 

how small account military folks are held among our 
Northern people. Our young men must gild their 
spurs, but they need not win them. The equal 
division of property keeps the younger sons of rich 
people above the necessity of military service. Thus 
the army loses an element of refinement, and the 
moneyed upper class forgets what it is to count hero- 
ism among its virtues. Still I don't believe in any 
aristocracy without pluck as its backbone. Ours 
may show it when the time comes, if it ever does 
come. 

— These United States furnish the greatest market 
for intellectual green fruit of all the places in the 
world. I think so, at any rate. The demand for 
intellectual labor is so enormous and the market so 
far from nice, that young talent is apt to fare like 
unripe gooseberries, — get plucked to make a fool of. 
Think of a country which buys eighty thousand cop- 
ies of the Proverbial Philosophy, while the author's 
admiring countrymen have been buying twelve thou- 
sand ! How can one let his fruit hang in the sun 
until it gets fully ripe, while there are eighty thousand 
such hungry mouths ready to swallow it and proclaim 
its praises? Consequently, there never was such a 
collection of crude pippins and half-grown windfalls 
as our native literature displays among its fruits. 
There are literary green-groceries at every corner, 
which will buy anything, from a button-pear to a 
pine-apple. It takes a long apprenticeship to train a 
whole people to reading and writing. The tempta- 
tion of money and fame is too great for young people. 
Do I not remember that glorious moment when the 

late Mr. we won't say who, — editor of the 

we won't say what, offered me the sum of fifty cents 



264 THE AUTOCRAT 

per double-columned quarto page for shaking my 
young boughs over his foolscap apron? Was it not 
an intoxicating vision of gold and glory ? I should 
doubtless have revelled in its wealth and splendor, 
but for learning that the fifty cents was to be consid- 
ered a rhetorical embellishment, and by no means a 
literal expression of past fact or present intention. 

— Beware of making your moral staple consist 
of the negative virtues. It is good to abstain, and 
teach others to abstain, from all that is sinful or 
hurtful. But making a business of it leads to ema- 
ciation of character, unless one feeds largely also on 
the more nutritious diet of active sympathetic benev- 
olence. 

— I don^ believe one word of what you are 
saying, — spoke up the angular female in black bom- 
bazine. 

I am sorry you disbelieve it, Madam, — I said, 
and added softly to my next neighbor, — but you 
prove it. 

The young fellow sitting near me winked ; and 
the divinity-student said, in an undertone, — Optime 
dictum. 

Your talking Latin, — said I, — reminds me of an 
odd trick of one of my old tutors. He read so much 
of that language, that his English half turned into it. 
He got caught in town, one hot summer, in pretty 
close quarters, and wrote, or began to write, a series 
of city pastorals. Eclogues he called them, and 
meant to have published them by subscription. I 
remember some of his verses, if you want to hear 
them. — You, sir, (addressing myself to the divinity- 
student,) and all such as have been through college, 
or, what is the same thing, received an honorary 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 265 

degree, will understand them without a dictionary. 
The old man had a great deal to say about " aestiva- 
tion," as he called it, in opposition, as one might 
say, to hibernation. Intramural aestivation, or town- 
life in summer, he would say, is a peculiar form of 
suspended existence, or semi-asphyxia. One wakes 
up from it about the beginning of the last week 
in September. This is what I remember of his 
poem : — 

ESTIVATION. 

An Unpublished Poem by my late Latin Tutor. 

IN candent ire the solar splendor flames; 
The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames ; 
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes, 
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes. 

How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes, 
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise, 
Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine, 
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine ! 

To me, alas! no verdurous visions come, 
Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum, — 
No concave vast repeats the tender hue 
That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue ! 

Me wretched ! Let me curr to quercine shades ! 
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids ! 
Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump, — 
Depart, — be off, — excede, — evade, — erump ! 

— I have lived by the sea-shore and by the moun- 
tains. — No, I am not going to say which is best. The 
one where your place is is the best for you. But this 
difference there is : you can domesticate mountains, 



266 THE AUTOCRAT 

but the sea is ferce naturce. You may have a hut, ot 
know the owner of one, on the mountain-side ; you 
see a light half-way up its ascent in the evening, and 
you know there is a home, and you might share it. 
You have noted certain trees, perhaps ; you know the 
particular zone where the hemlocks look so black in 
October, when the maples and beeches have faded. 
All its reliefs and intaglios have electrotyped them- 
selves in the medallions that hang round the walls 
of your memory's chamber. — The sea remembers 
nothing. It is feline. It licks your feet, — its huge 
flanks purr very pleasantly for you ; but it will crack 
your bones and eat you, for all that, and wipe the 
crimsoned foam from its jaws as if nothing had hap- 
pened. The mountains give their lost children berries 
and water ; the sea mocks their thirst and lets them 
die. The mountains have a grand, stupid, lovable 
tranquillity ; the sea has a fascinating, treacherous 
intelligence. The mountains lie about like huge ru- 
minants, their broad backs awful to look upon, but 
safe to handle. The sea smooths its silver scales 
until you cannot see their joints, — but their shining 
is that of a snake's belly, after all. — In deeper sug- 
gestiveness I find as great a difference. The moun- 
tains dwarf mankind and foreshorten the procession 
of its long generations. The sea drowns out human- 
ity and time ; it has no sympathy with either ; for it 
belongs to eternity, and of that it sings its monotonous 
song for ever and ever. 

Yet I should love to have a little box by the sea- 
shore. I should love to gaze out on the wild feline 
element from a front window of my own, just as I 
should love to look on a caged panther, and see it 
stretch its shining length, and then curl over and lap 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 267 

its smooth sides, and by-and-by begin to lash itself 
into rage and show its white teeth and spring at its 
bars, and howl the cry of its mad, but, to me, harmless 
fury. — And then, — to look at it with that inward 
eye, — who does not love to shuffle off time and its 
concerns, at intervals, — to forget who is President 
and who is Governor, what race he belongs to, what 
language he speaks, which golden-headed nail of the 
firmament his particular planetary system is hung 
upon, and listen to the great liquid metronome as it 
beats its solemn measure, steadily swinging when the 
solo or duet of human life began, and to swing just 
as steadily after the human chorus has died out and 
man is a fossil on its shores ? 

— What should decide one, in choosing a summer 
residence? — Constitution, first of all. How much 
snow could you melt in an hour, if you were planted 
in a hogshead of it? Comfort is essential to enjoy- 
ment. All sensitive people should remember that 
persons in easy circumstances suffer much more from 
cold in summer — that is, the warm half of the year — 
than in winter, or the other half. You must cut your 
climate to your constitution, as much as your clothing 
to your shape. After this, consult your taste and 
convenience. But if you would be happy in Berk- 
shire, you must carry mountains in your brain ; and 
if you would enjoy Nahant, you must have an ocean 
in your soul. Nature plays at dominos with you ; 
you must match her piece, or she will never give it up 
to you. 

— The schoolmistress said, in a rather mischiev- 
ous way, that she was afraid some minds or souls 
would be a little crowded, if they took in the Rocky 
Mountains or the Atlantic. 



268 THE AUTOCRAT 

Have you ever read the little book called The 
Stars and the Earth f — said I. — Have you seen the 
Declaration of Independence photographed in a sur- 
face that a fly's foot would cover? The forms or 
conditions of Time and Space, as Kant will tell you, 
are nothing in themselves, — only our way of looking 
at things. You are right, I think, however, in recog- 
nizing the category of Space as being quite as appli- 
cable to minds as to the outer world. Every man 
of reflection is vaguely conscious of an imperfectly 
defined circle which is drawn about his intellect. He 
has a perfectly clear sense that the fragments of his 
intellectual circle include the curves of" many other 
minds of which he is cognizant. He often recog- 
nizes these as manifestly concentric with his own, but 
of less radius. On the other hand, when we find a 
portion of an arc on the outside of our own, we say 
it intersects ours, but are very slow to confess or to 
see that it circumscribes it. Every now and then a 
man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, 
and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. 
After looking at the Alps, I felt that my mind had 
been stretched beyond the limits of its elasticity, and 
fitted so loosely on my old ideas of space that I had 
to spread these to fit it. 

— If I thought I should ever see the Alps ! — said 
the schoolmistress. 

Perhaps you will, some time or other, — I said. 

It is not very likely, — she answered. — I have had 
one or two opportunities, but I had rather be any- 
thing than governess in a rich family. 

[Proud, too, you little soft-voiced woman ! Well, 
I can't say I like you any the worse for it. How long 
will school-keeping take to kill you? Is it possible 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 269 

the poor thing works with her needle, too ? I don't 
like those marks on the side of her forefinger. 

Tableau. Chamouni. Mont Blanc in full view. 
Figures in the foreground ; two of them standing 

apart ; one of them a gentleman of oh, — ah, — 

yes ! the other a lady in a white cashmere, leaning on 
his shoulder. — The ingenuous reader will understand 
that this was an internal, private, personal, subjective 
diorama, seen for one instant on the back-ground 
of my own consciousness, and abolished into black 
nonentity by the first question which recalled me 
to actual life, as suddenly as if one of those iron 
shop-blinds (which I always pass at dusk with a 
shiver, expecting to stumble over some poor but 
honest shop-boy's head, just taken off by its sudden 
and unexpected descent, and left outside upon the 
sidewalk) had come down in front of it " by the 
run."] 

— Should you like to hear what moderate wishes 
life brings one to at last ? I used to be very ambi- 
tious, — wasteful, extravagant, and luxurious in all my 
fancies. Read too much in the "Arabian Nights." 
Must have the lamp, — could n't do without the ring. 
Exercise every morning on the brazen horse. Plump 
down into castles as full of little milk-white princesses 
as a nest is of young sparrows. All love me dearly 
at once. — Charming idea of life, but too high-colored 
for the reality. I have outgrown all this ; my tastes 
have become exceedingly primitive, — almost, per- 
haps, ascetic. We carry happiness into our condi- 
tion, but must not hope to find it there. I think you 
will be willing to hear some lines which embody the 
subdued and limited desires of my maturity. 



27O THE AUTOCRAT 

CONTENTMENT. 

" Man wants but little here below." 

Little I ask ; my wants are few ; 

I only wish a hut of stone, 
(A very plain brown stone will do,) 
That I may call my own ; — 
And close at hand is such a one, 
In yonder street that fronts the sun. 

Plain food is quite enough for me ; 

Three courses are as good as ten ; — 
If Nature can subsist on three, 

Thank Heaven for three. Amen ! 
I always thought cold victual nice ; — 
My choice would be vanilla-ice. 

I care not much for gold or land ; — 

Give me a mortgage here and there, — 
Some good bank-stock,— some note of hand, 

Or trifling railroad share ; — 
I only ask that Fortune send 
A little more than I shall spend. 

Honors are silly toys, I know, 

And titles are but empty names ; — 
I would, perhaps, be Plenipo, — 

But only near St. James ; — 
I 'm very sure I should not care 
To fill our Gubernator's chair. 

Jewels are baubles ; 't is a sin 

To care for such unfruitful things ; — 
One good-sized diamond in a pin, — 
Some, not so large, in rings, — 
A ruby, and a pearl, or so, 
Will do for me ; — I laugh at show. 

My dame should dress in cheap attire; 
(Good, heavy silks are never dear ;) 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 27 1 

I own perhaps I might desire 

Some shawls of true cashmere, — 
Some marrowy crapes of China silk, 
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk. 

I would not have the horse I drive 

So fast that folks must stop and stare ; 
An easy gait — two, forty-five — 

Suits me ; I do not care ; — 
Perhaps, for just a single spurt, 
Some seconds less would do no hurt. 

Of pictures I should like to own 

Titians and Raphaels three or four, — 
I love so much their style and tone, — 

One Turner, and no more, — 
(A landscape, — foreground golden dirt. 
The sunshine painted with a squirt.) 

Of books but few, — some fifty score 

For daily use, and bound for wear ; 
The rest upon an upper floor ; — 

Some little luxury there 
Of red morocco's gilded gleam, 
And vellum rich as country cream. 

Busts, cameos, gems, — such things as these, 

Which others often show for pride, 
/ value for their power to please, 

And selfish churls deride ; — 
One Stradivarius, I confess, 
Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess. 

Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, 
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool ; — 
Shall not carved tables serve my turn, 

But all must be of buhl ? 
Give grasping pomp its double share, — 
I ask but one recumbent chair. 



2/2 THE AUTOCRAT 

Thus humble let me live and die, 

Nor long for Midas' golden touch, 
If Heaven more generous gifts deny, 
I shall not miss them much, — 
Too grateful for the blessing lent 
Of simple tastes and mind content ! 

MY LAST WALK WITH THE SCHOOLMISTRESS. 

(A Parenthesis.} 

I can't say just how many walks she and I had 
taken together before this one. I found the effect of 
going out every morning was decidedly favorable on 
her health. Two pleasing dimples, the places for 
which were just marked when she came, played, 
shadowy, in her freshening cheeks when she smiled 
and nodded good-morning to me from the school- 
house-steps. 

I am afraid I did the greater part of the talking. 
At any rate, if I should try to report all that I said 
during the first half-dozen walks we took together, I 
fear that I might receive a gentle hint from my 
friends the publishers, that a separate volume, at my 
own risk and expense, would be the proper method 
of bringing them before the public. 

— I would have a woman as true as Death. At the 
first real lie which works from the heart outward, she 
should be tenderly chloroformed into a better world, 
where she can have an angel for a governess, and 
feed on strange fruits which will make her all over 
again, even to her bones and marrow. — Whether 
gifted with the accident of beauty or not, she should 
have been moulded in the rose-red clay of Love, 
before the breath of life made a moving mortal of 
her. Love-capacity is a congenital endowment ; and 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 273 

I think, after a while, one gets to know the warm- 
hued natures it belongs to from the pretty pipe-clay 
counterfeits of them. — Proud she may be, in the sense 
of respecting herself; but pride, in the sense of con- 
temning others less gifted than herself, deserves the 
two lowest circles of a vulgar woman's Inferno, where 
the punishments are Smallpox and Bankruptcy. — 
She who nips off the end of a brittle courtesy, as one 
breaks the tip of an icicle, to bestow upon those whom 
she ought cordially and kindly to recognize, proclaims 
the fact that she comes not merely of low blood, but 
of bad blood. Consciousness of unquestioned posi- 
tion makes people gracious in proper measure to all ; 
but if a woman puts on airs with her real equals, she 
has something about herself or her family she is 
ashamed of, or ought to be. Middle, and more than 
middle-aged people, who know family histories, gen- 
erally see through it. An official of standing was 
rude to me once. Oh, that is the maternal grand- 
father, — said a wise old friend to me — he was a 
boor. — Better too few words, from the woman we 
love, than too many : while she is silent, Nature is 
working for her ; while she talks, she is working for 
herself. — Love is sparingly soluble in the words of 
men ; therefore they speak much of it ; but one syl- 
lable of woman's speech can dissolve more of it than 
a man's heart can hold. 

— Whether I said any or all of these things to the 
schoolmistress, or not, — whether I stole them out of 
Lord Bacon, — whether I cribbed them from Balzac, 
whether I dipped them from the ocean of Tupperian 
wisdom, — or whether I have just found them in my 
head, laid there by that solemn fowl, Experience, 
(who, according to my observation, cackles oftener 



274 THE AUTOCRAT 

than she drops real live eggs,) I cannot say. Wise 
men have said more foolish things, — and foolish 
men, I don't doubt, have said as wise things. Any- 
how, the schoolmistress and I had pleasant walks 
and long talks, all of which I do not feel bound to 
report. 

— You are a stranger to me, Ma'am. — I don't 
doubt you would like to know all I said to the 
schoolmistress. — I shan't do it ; — I had rather get 
the publishers to return the money you have invested 
in this. Besides, I have forgotten a good deal of it. 
I shall only tell what I like of what I remember. 

— My idea was, in the first place, to search out the 
picturesque spots which the city affords a sight of, to 
those who have eyes. I know a good many, and it 
was a pleasure to look at them in company with my 
young friend. There were the shrubs and flowers 
in the Franklin-Place front-yards or borders ; Com- 
merce is just putting his granite foot upon them. 
Then there are certain small seraglio-gardens, into 
which one can get a peep through the crevices of 
high fences, — one in Myrtle Street, or backing on it, 
— here and there one at the North and South Ends. 
Then the great elms in Essex Street. Then the 
stately horse-chestnuts in that vacant lot in Chambers 
Street, which hold their outspread hands over your 
head, (as I said in my poem the other day,) and look 
as if they were whispering, " May grace, mercy, and 
peace be with you ! " — and the rest of that benedic- 
tion. Nay, there are certain patches of ground, 
which, having lain neglected for a time, Nature, who 
always has her pockets full of seeds, and holes in 
all her pockets, has covered with hungry plebeian 
growths, which fight for life with each other, until 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 275 

some of them get broad-leaved and succulent, and 
you have a coarse vegetable tapestry which Raphael 
would not have disdained to spread over the fore- 
ground of his masterpiece. The Professor pretends 
that he found such a one in Charles Street, which, 
in its dare-devil impudence of rough-and-tumble veg- 
etation, beat the pretty-behaved flower-beds of the 
Public Garden as ignominiously as a group of young 
tatterdemalions playing pitch-and-toss beats a row of 
Sunday-school-boys with their teacher at their head. 

But then the Professor has one of his burrows in 
that region, and puts everything in high colors relat- 
ing to it. That is his way about everything — I 
hold any man cheap, — he said, — of whom nothing 
stronger can be uttered than that all his geese are 
swans. — How is that, Professor? — said I ; — I should 
have set you down for one of that sort. — Sir, — said 
he, — I am proud to say, that Nature has so far 
enriched me, that I cannot own so much as a duck 
without seeing in it as pretty a swan as ever swam 
the basin in the garden of the Luxembourg. And 
the Professor showed the whites of his eyes devoutly, 
like one returning thanks after a dinner of many 
courses. 

I don't know anything sweeter than this leaking 
in of Nature through all the cracks in the walls and 
floors of cities. You heap up a million tons of 
hewn rocks on a square mile or two of earth which 
was green once. The trees look down from the hill- 
sides and ask each other, as. they stand on tiptoe, — 
"What are these people about? 1 ' And the small 
herbs at their feet look up and whisper back, — " We 
will go and see." So the small herbs pack them- 
selves up in the least possible bundles, and wait 



276 THE AUTOCRAT 

until the wind steals to them at night and whispers, 
— "Come with me." Then they go softly with it 
into the great city, — one to a cleft in the pavement, 
one to a spout on the roof, one to a seam in the 
marbles over a rich gentleman's bones, and one to 
the grave without a stone where nothing but a man 
is buried, — and there they grow, looking down , on 
the generations of men from mouldy roofs, looking 
up from between the less-trodden pavements, looking 
out through iron cemetery-railings. Listen to them, 
when there is only a light breath stirring, and you 
will hear them saying to each other, — "Wait awhile ! " 
The words run along the telegraph of those narrow 
green lines that border the roads leading from the 
city, until they reach the slope of the hills, and the 
trees repeat in low murmurs to each other, — "Wait 
awhile ! " By-and-by the flow of life in the streets 
ebbs, and the old leafy inhabitants — the smaller 
tribes always in front — saunter in, one by one, very 
careless seemingly, but very tenacious, until they 
swarm so that the great stones gape from each other 
with the crowding of their roots, and the feldspar 
begins to be picked out of the granite to find them 
food. At last the trees take up their solemn line of 
march, and never rest until they have encamped in 
the market-place. Wait long enough and you will 
find an old doting oak hugging a huge worn block 
in its yellow underground arms ; that was the corner- 
stone of the State-House. Oh, so patient she is, this 
imperturbable Nature ! 

— Let us cry ! — 

But all this has nothing to do with my walks and 
talks with the schoolmistress. I did not say that I 
would not tell you something about them. Let me 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE 277 

alone, and I shall talk to you more than I ought to, 
probably. We never tell our secrets to people that 
pump for them. 

Books we talked about, and education. It was her 
duty to know something of these, and of course she 
did. Perhaps I was somewhat more learned than 
she, but I found that the difference between her read- 
ing and mine was like that of a man's and a woman's 
dusting a library. The man flaps about with a bunch 
of feathers ; the woman goes to work softly with a 
cloth. She does not raise half the dust, nor fill her 
own eyes and mouth with it, — but she goes into all 
the corners, and attends to the leaves as much as the 
covers. — Books are the negative pictures of thought, 
and the more sensitive the mind that receives their 
images, the more nicely the finest lines are reproduced. 
A woman, (of the right kind,) reading after a man, 
follows him as Ruth followed the reapers of Boaz, and 
her gleanings are often the finest of the wheat. 

But it was in talking of Life that we came most 
nearly together. I thought I knew something about 
that, — that I could speak or write about it somewhat 
to the purpose. 

To take up this fluid earthly being of ours as a 
sponge sucks up water, — to be steeped and soaked 
in its realities as a hide fills its pores lying seven 
years in a tan-pit, — to have winnowed every wave 
of it as a mill-wheel works up the stream that runs 
through the flume upon its float-boards, — to have 
curled up in the keenest spasms and flattened out in 
the laxest languors of this breathing-sickness, which 
keeps certain parcels of matter uneasy for three or 
four score years, — to have fought all the devils and 
clasped all the angels of its delirium, — and then, just 



278 THE AUTOCRAT 

at the point when the white-hot passions have cooled 
down to cherry-red, plunge our experience into the 
ice-cold stream of some human language or other, 
one might think would end in a rhapsody with some- 
thing of spring and temper in it. All this I thought 
my power and province. 

The schoolmistress had tried life, too. Once in a 
while one meets with a single soul greater than all 
the living pageant which passes before it. As the pale 
astronomer sits in his study with sunken eyes and 
thin fingers, and weighs Uranus or Neptune as in a 
balance, so there are meek, slight women who have 
weighed all which this planetary life can offer, and 
hold it like a bauble in the palm of their slender 
hands. This was one of them. Fortune had left 
her, sorrow had baptized her; the routine of labor 
and the loneliness of almost friendless city-life were 
before her. Yet, as I looked upon her tranquil face, 
gradually regaining a cheerfulness which was often 
sprightly, as she became interested in the various 
matters we talked about and places we visited, I saw 
that eye and lip and every shifting lineament were 
made for love, — unconscious of their sweet office as 
yet, and meeting the cold aspect of Duty with the 
natural graces which were meant for the reward of 
nothing less than the Great Passion. 

— I never addressed one word of love to the 
schoolmistress in the course of these pleasant walks. 
It seemed to me that we talked of everything but 
love on that particular morning. There was, per- 
haps, a little more timidity and hesitancy on my 
part than I have commonly shown among our people 
at the boarding-house. In fact, I considered myself 
the master at the breakfast-table; but, somehow, 




'Good Morning, my Dears." 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2jq 

I ^could not command myself just then so well 
as usual. The truth is, I had secured a passage 
to Liverpool in the steamer which was to leave 
at noon, — with the condition, however, of being 
released in case circumstances occurred to detain 
me. The schoolmistress knew nothing about all 
this, of course, as yet. 

It was on the Common that we were walking. 
The mall, or boulevard of our Common, you know, 
has various branches leading from it in different direc- 
tions. One of these runs down from opposite Joy 
Street southward across the whole length of the Com- 
mon to Boylston Street. We called it the long path, 
and were fond of it. 

I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably ro- 
bust habit) as we came opposite the head of this path 
on that morning. I think I tried to speak twice with- 
out making myself distinctly audible. At last I got 
out the question, — Will you take the long path with 
me ? — Certainly, — said the schoolmistress, — with 
much pleasure. — Think, — I said, — before you 
answer ; if you take the long path with me now, I 
shall interpret it that we are to part no more ! — The 
schoolmistress stepped back with a sudden move- 
ment, as if an arrow had struck her. 

One of the long granite blocks used as seats was 
hard by, — the one you may still see close by the 
Gingko-tree. — Pray, sit down, — I said. — No, no, 
she answered, softly, — I will walk the long path with 
you ! 

— The old gentleman who sits opposite met us 
walking, arm in arm, about the middle of the long 
path, and said, very charmingly, — " Good morning, 
my dears ! " 



XII. 

[I did not think it probable that I should have a 
great many more talks with our company, and there- 
fore I was anxious to get as much as I could into 
every conversation. That is the reason why you will 
find some odd, miscellaneous facts here, which I 
wished to tell at least once, as I should not have a 
chance to tell them habitually, at our breakfast-table. 
— We 're very free and easy, you know ; we don't 
read what we don't like. Our parish is so large, one 
can't pretend to preach to all the pews at once. One 
can't be all the. time trying to do the best of one's 
best ; if a company works a steam fire-engine, the 
firemen need n't be straining themselves all day to 
squirt over the top of the flagstaff. Let them wash 
some of those lower-story windows a little. Besides, 
there is no use in our quarrelling now, as you will find 
out when you get through this paper.] 

— Travel, according to my experience, does not 
exactly correspond to the idea one gets of it out of 
most books of travels. I am thinking of travel as 
it was when I made the Grand Tour, especially in 
Italy. Memory is a net ; one finds it full of fish 
when he takes it from the brook ; but a dozen miles 
of water have run through it without sticking. I can 
prove some facts about travelling by a story or two. 
There are certain principles to be assumed, — such 
as these : — He who is carried by horses must deal 
with rogues. — To-day's dinner subtends a larger vis- 
280 



AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 28 1 

ual angle than yesterday's revolution. A mote in my 
eye is bigger to me than the biggest of Dr. Gould's 
private planets. — Every traveller is a self-taught en- 
tomologist. — Old jokes are dynamometers of mental 
tension ; an old joke tells better among friends trav- 
elling than at home, — which shows that their minds 
are in a state of diminished, rather than increased 
vitality. There was a story about "strahps to your 
pahnts," which was vastly funny to us fellows — on 
the road from Milan to Venice. — Ccelum, non ani- 
munij — travellers change their guineas, but not their 
characters. The bore is the same, eating dates under 
the cedars of Lebanon, as over a plate of baked beans 
in Beacon Street. — Parties of travellers have a mor- 
bid instinct for " establishing raws " upon each other. 
— A man shall sit down with his friend at the foot of 
the Great Pyramid and they will take up the question 
they had been talking about under " the great elm," 
and forget all about Egypt. When I was crossing 
the Po, we were all fighting about the propriety of 
one fellow's telling another that his argument was 
absurd ; one maintaining it to be a perfectly admis- 
sible logical term, as proved by the phrase " reductio 
ad absurdum" ; the rest badgering him as a conver- 
sational bully. Mighty little we troubled ourselves 
for Padus, the Po, " a river broader and more rapid 
than the Rhone," and the times when Hannibal led 
his grim Africans to its banks, and his elephants 
thrust their trunks into the yellow waters over which 
that pendulum ferry-boat was swinging back and for- 
ward every ten minutes ! 

— Here are some of those reminiscences, with 
morals prefixed, or annexed, or implied. 

Lively emotions very commonly do not strike us 



282 THE AUTOCRAT 

full in front, but obliquely from the side ; a scene or 
incident in undress often affects us more than one in 
full costume. 

" Is this the mighty ocean ? — is this all ? " 

says the Princess in Gebir. The rush that should 
have flooded my soul in the Coliseum did not come. 
But walking one day in the fields about the city, I 
stumbled over a fragment of broken masonry, and lo ! 
the World's Mistress in her stone girdle — alta 7noenia 
Rojnce — rose before me and whitened my cheek with 
her pale shadow as never before or since. 

I used very often, when coming home from my 
morning's work at one of the public institutions of 
Paris, to stop in at the dear old church of St. Etienne 
du Mont. The tomb of St. Genevieve, surrounded 
by burning candles and votive tablets, was there ; the 
mural tablet of Jacobus Benignus Winslow was there ; 
there was a noble organ with carved figures ; the pul- 
pit was borne on the oaken shoulders of a stooping 
Samson ; and there was a marvellous staircase like a 
coil of lace. These things I mention from memory, 
but not all of them together impressed me so much as 
an inscription on a small slab of marble fixed in one 
of the walls. It told how this church of St. Stephen 
was repaired and beautified in the year 16**, and 
how, during the celebration of its reopening, two girls 
of the parish (filles de la paroisse) fell from the gallery, 
carrying a part of the balustrade with them, to the 
pavement, but by a miracle escaped uninjured. Two 
young girls, nameless, but real presences to my imagi- 
nation, as much as when they came fluttering down 
on the tiles with a cry that outscreamed the sharpest 
treble in the Te Deum! (Look at-Carlyle's article on 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 283 

Boswell, and see how he speaks of the poor young 
woman Johnson talked with in the streets one even- 
ing.) All the crowd gone but these two " filles de la 
paroisse," — gone as utterly as the dresses they wore, 
as the shoes that were on their feet, as the bread and 
meat that were in the market on that day. 

Not the great historical events, but the personal 
incidents that call up single sharp pictures of some 
human being in its pang or struggle, reach us most 
nearly. I remember the platform at Berne, over the 
parapet of which Theobald WeinzapfiTs restive horse 
sprung with him and landed him more than a hundred 
feet beneath in the lower town, not dead, but sorely 
broken, and no longer a wild youth, but God's servant 
from that day forward. I have forgotten the famous 
bears, and all else. — I remember the Percy lion on the 
bridge over the little river at Alnwick, — the leaden 
lion with his tail stretched out straight like a pump- 
handle, — and why? Because of the story of the 
village boy who must fain bestride the leaden tail, 
standing out over the water, — which breaking, he 
dropped into the stream far below, and was taken out 
an idiot for the rest of his life. 

Arrow-heads must be brought to a sharp point, 
and the guillotine-axe must have a slanting edge. 
Something intensely human, narrow, and definite 
pierces to the seat of our sensibilities more readily 
than huge occurrences and catastrophes. A nail will 
pick a lock that defies hatchet and hammer. " The 
Royal George " went down with all her crew, and 
Cowper wrote an exquisitely simple poem about it ; 
but the leaf which holds it is smooth, while that which 
bears the lines on his mother's portrait is blistered 
with tears. 



284 THE AUTOCRAT 

My telling these recollections sets rne thinking of 
others of the same kind which strike the imagination, 
especially when one is still young. You remember 
the monument in Devizes market to the woman struck 
dead with a lie in her mouth. I never saw that, but 
it is in the books. Here is one I never heard men- 
tioned ; — if any of the "Note and Query" tribe can 
tell the story, I hope they will. Where is this monu- 
ment? I was riding on an English stage-coach when 
we passed a handsome marble column (as I remember 
it) of considerable size and pretensions. — What is 
that? — I said. — That, — answered the coachman, — 
is the hangman? s pillar. Then he told me how a man 
went out one night, many years ago, to steal sheep. 
He caught one, tied its legs together, passed the rope 
over his head, and started for home. In climbing a 
fence, the rope slipped, caught him by the neck, and 
strangled him. Next morning he was found hang- 
ing dead on one side of the fence and the sheep on 
the other ; in memory whereof the lord of the manor 
caused this monument to be erected as a warning to 
all who love mutton better than virtue. I will send 
a copy of this record to him or her who shall first set 
me right about this column and its locality. 

And telling over these old stories reminds me that 
I have something which may interest architects and 
perhaps some other persons. I once ascended the 
spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which is the highest, 
I think, in Europe. It is a shaft of stone filigree- 
work, frightfully open, so that the guide puts his arms 
behind you to keep you from falling. To climb it is 
a noonday nightmare, and to think of having climbed 
it crisps all the fifty-six joints of one's twenty digits. 
While I was on it, u pinnacled dim in the intense 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 285 

inane," a strong wind was blowing, and I felt sure 
that the spire was rocking. It swayed back and for- 
ward like a stalk of rye or a cat-o'-nine-tails (bulrush) 
with a bobolink on it. I mentioned it to the guide, 
and he said that the spire did really swing back and 
forward, — I think he said some feet. 

Keep any line of knowledge ten years and some 
other line will intersect it. Long afterwards I was 
hunting out a paper of DumeriPs in an old journal, — 
the "Magazin Encyclopedique " for Tan troisibne, 
(1795,) when I stumbled upon a brief article on the 
vibrations of the spire of Strasburg Cathedral. A 
man can shake it so that the movement shall be 
shown in a vessel of water nearly seventy feet below 
the summit, and higher up the vibration is like that 
of an earthquake. I have seen one of those wretched 
wooden spires with which we very shabbily finish 
some of our stone churches (thinking that the lidless 
blue eye of heaven cannot tell the counterfeit we try 
to pass on it,) swinging like a reed, in a wind, but one 
would hardly think of such a thing^s happening in a 
stone spire. Does the Bunker-Hill Monument bend 
in the blast like a blade of grass? I suppose so. 

You see, of course, that I am talking in a cheap 
way ; — perhaps we will have some philosophy by 
and by; — let me work out this thin mechanical vein. 
— I have something more to say about trees. I have 
brought down this slice of hemlock to show you. 
Tree blew down in my woods (that were) in 1852. 
Twelve feet and a half round, fair girth ; — nine feet, 
where I got my section, higher up. This is a wedge, 
going to the centre, of the general shape of a slice 
of apple-pie, in a large and not opulent family. 
Length, about eighteen inches. I have studied the 



286 THE AUTOCRAT 

growth of this tree by its rings, and it is curious. 
Three hundred and forty-two rings. Started, there- 
fore, about 1 510. The thickness of the rings tells 
the rate at which it grew. For five or six years the 
rate was slow, — then rapid for twenty years. A 
little before the year 1550 it began to grow very 
slowly, and so continued for about seventy years. In 
1620 it took a new start and grew fast until 1714; 
then for the most part slowly until 1786, when it 
started again and grew pretty well and uniformly 
until within the last dozen years, when it seems to 
have got on sluggishly. 

Look here. Here are some human lives laid down 
against the periods of its growth, to which they cor- 
responded. This is Shakspeare's. The tree was 
seven inches in diameter when he was born ; ten 
inches when he died. A little less than ten inches 
when Milton was born ; seventeen when he died. 
Then comes a long interval, and this thread marks 
out Johnson's life, during which the tree increased 
from twenty-two to twenty-nine inches in diameter. 
Here is the span of Napoleon's career; — the tree 
does n't seem to have minded it. 

I never saw the man yet who was not startled at 
looking on this section, I have seen many wooden 
preachers ; — never one like this. How much more 
striking would be the calendar counted on the rings 
of one of those awful trees which were standing 
when Christ was on earth, and where that brief mortal 
life is chronicled with the stolid apathy of vegetable 
being, which remembers all human history as a thing 
of yesterday in its own dateless existence ! 

I have something more to say about elms. A 
relative tells me there is one of great glory in Ando- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 287 

ver, near Bradford. I have some recollections of the 
former place, pleasant and other. [I wonder if the 
old Seminary clock strikes as slowly as it used to. 
My room-mate thought, when he first came, it was 
the bell tolling deaths, and people's ages, as they do 
in the country. He swore — (ministers' sons get so 
familiar with good words that they are apt to handle 
them carelessly) — that the children were dying by 
the dozen, of all ages, from one to twelve, and ran 
off next day in recess, when it began to strike eleven, 
but was caught before the clock got through strik- 
ing.] At the foot of u the hill," down in town, is, or 
was, a tidy old elm, which was said to have been 
hooped with iron to protect it from Indian toma- 
hawks, {Credat Hahnemanniis) and to have grown 
round its hoops and buried them in its wood. Of 
course, this is not the tree my relative means. 

Also, I have a very pretty letter from Norwich, in 
Connecticut, telling me of two noble elms which are 
to be seen in that town. One hundred and twenty- 
seven feet from bough-end to bough-end ! What do you 
say to that? And gentle ladies beneath it, that love 
it and celebrate its praises ! And that in a town of 
such supreme, audacious, Alpine loveliness as Nor- 
wich ! — Only the dear people there must learn to call 
it Norridge, and not be misled by the mere accident 
of spelling. 

Norwich. 

Por^mouth. 

Cincinnati. 
What a sad picture of our civilization ! 

I did not speak to you of the great tree on what 
used to be the Colman farm in Deerfleld, simply 
because I had not seen it for many years, and did 



288 THE AUTOCRAT 

not like to trust my recollection. But I had it in 
memory, and even noted down, as one of the finest 
trees in symmetry and beauty I had ever seen. I 
have received a document, signed by two citizens of 
a neighboring town, certified by the postmaster and 
a selectman, and these again corroborated, reinforced, 
and sworn to by a member of that extraordinary col- 
lege-class to which it is the good fortune of my friend 
the Professor to belong, who, though he has formerly 
been a member of Congress, is, I believe, fully worthy 
of confidence. The tree "girts " eighteen and a half 
feet, and spreads over a hundred, and is a real beauty. 
I hope to meet my friend under its branches yet ; if 
we don't have " youth at the prow," we will have 
" pleasure at the 'elm." 

And just now, again, I have got a letter about 
some grand willows in Maine, and another about an 
elm in Wayland, but too late for anything but thanks. 

[And this leads me to say, that I have received a 
great many communications, in prose and verse> since 
I began printing these notes. The last came this 
very morning, in the shape of a neat and brief poem, 
from New Orleans. I could not make any of them 
public, though sometimes requested to do so. Some 
of them have given me great pleasure, and encouraged 
me to believe I had friends whose faces I had never 
seen. If you are pleased with anything a writer says, 
and doubt whether to tell him of it, do not hesitate ; 
a pleasant word is a cordial to one, who perhaps 
thinks he is tiring you, and so becomes tired himself. 
I purr very loud over a good, honest letter that says 
pretty things to me.] 

— Sometimes very young persons send communi- 
cations which they want forwarded to editors ; and 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 289 

these young persons do not always seem to have 
right conceptions of these same editors, and of the 
public, and of themselves. Here is a letter I wrote 
to one of these young folks, but, on the whole, thought 
it best not to send. It is not fair to single out one 
for such sharp advice, where there are hundreds that 
are in need of it. 

Dear Sir, — You seem to be somewhat, but not a 
great deal, wiser than I was at your age. I don't 
wish to be understood as saying too much, for I 
think, without committing myself to any opinion on 
my present state, that I was not a Solomon at that 
stage of development. 

You long to "leap at a single bound into celeb- 
rity.'" Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be 
remarkable. Fame usually comes to those who are 
thinking about something else, — very rarely to those 
who say to themselves, " Go to, now, let us be a cele- 
brated individual!" The struggle for fame, as such, 
commonly ends in notoriety; — that ladder is easy 
to climb, but it leads to the pillory which is crowded 
with fools who could not hold their tongues and 
rogues who could not hide their tricks. 

If you have the consciousness of genius, do some- 
thing to show it. The world is pretty quick, nowa- 
days, to catch the flavor of true originality ; if you 
write anything remarkable, the magazines and news- 
papers will find you out, as the school-boys find out 
where the ripe apples and pears are. Produce any- 
thing really good, and an intelligent editor will jump 
at it. Don't flatter yourself that any article of yours 
is rejected because you are unknown to fame. Noth- 
ing pleases an editor more than to get anything 



29O THE AUTOCRAT 

worth having from a new hand. There is always a 
dearth of really fine articles for a first-rate journal ; 
for, of a hundred pieces received, ninety are at or 
below the sea-level ; some have water enough, but no 
head ; some head enough, but no water ; only two or 
three are from full reservoirs, high up that hill which 
is so hard to climb. 

You may have genius. The contrary is of course 
probable, but it is not demonstrated. If you have, 
the world wants you more than you want it. It has 
not only a desire, but a passion, for every spark of 
genius that shows itself among us ; there is not a 
bull-calf in our national pasture that can bleat a 
rhyme but it is ten to one, among his friends, and no 
takers, that he is the real, genuine, no-mistake Osiris. 

QiCest ce qtiil a fait? What has he done ? That 
was Napoleon's test. What have you done ? Turn 
up the faces of your picture-cards, my boy! You 
need not make mouths at the public because it has 
not accepted you at your own fancy-valuation. Do 
the prettiest thing you can and wait your time. 

For the verses you send me, I will not say they 
are hopeless, and I dare not affirm that they show 
promise. I am not an editor, but I know the stand- 
ard of some editors. You must not expect to " leap 
with a single bound " into the society of those whom 
it is not flattery to call your betters. When "The 
Pactolian ,, has paid you for a copy of verses, — (I 
can furnish you a list of alliterative signatures, begin- 
ning with Annie Aureole and ending with Zoe Zenith,) 
— when "The Rag-bag' 1 has stolen your piece, after 
carefully scratching your name out, — when " The Nut- 
cracker " has thought you worth shelling, and strung 
the kernel of your cleverest poem, — then, and not till 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 291 

then, you may consider the presumption against you, 
from the fact of your rhyming tendency, as called in 
question, and let our friends hear from you, if you 
think it worth while. You may possibly think me too 
candid, and even accuse me of incivility ; but let me 
assure you that I am not half so plain-spoken as 
Nature, nor half so rude as Time. If you prefer the 
long jolting of public opinion to the gentle touch 
of friendship, try it like a man. Only remember this, 
— that, if a bushel of potatoes is shaken in a market- 
cart without springs to it, the small potatoes always 
get to the bottom. Believe me, etc., etc. 

I always think of verse-writers, when I am in this 
vein ; for these are by far the most exacting, eager, 
self-weighing, restless, querulous, unreasonable liter- 
ary persons one is like to meet with. Is a young 
man in the habit of writing verses ? Then the pre- 
sumption is that he is an inferior person. For, look 
you, there are at least nine chances in ten that he 
writes poor verses. Now the habit of chewing on 
rhymes without sense and soul to match them is, like 
that of using any other narcotic, at once a proof of 
feebleness and a debilitating agent. A young man 
can get rid of the presumption against him afforded 
by his writing verses only by convincing us that they 
are verses worth writing. 

All this sounds hard and rough, but, observe, it is 
not addressed to any individual, and of course does 
not refer to any reader of these pages. I would 
always treat any given young person passing through 
the meteoric showers which rain down on the brief 
period of adolescence with great tenderness. God 
forgive us if we ever speak harshly to young ere a- 



292 THE AUTOCRAT 

tures on the strength of these ugly truths, and so, 
sooner or later, smite some tender-souled poet or 
poetess on the lips who might have sung the world 
into sweet trances, had we not silenced the matin- 
song in its first low breathings ! Just as my heart 
yearns over .the unloved, just so it sorrows for the 
ungifted who are doomed to the pangs of an un- 
deceived self-estimate. I have always tried to be 
gentle with the most hopeless cases. My experience, 
however, has not been encouraging. 

— X. Y., aet. 1 8, a cheaply-got-up youth, with nar- 
row jaws, and broad, bony, cold, red hands, having 
been laughed at by the girls in his village, and " got 
the mitten n (pronounced mittz'n) two or three times, 
falls to souling and controlling, and youthing and 
truthing, in the newspapers. Sends me some strings 
of verses, candidates for the Orthopedic Infirmary, all 
of them, in which I learn for the millionth time one 
of the following facts : either that something about a 
chime is sublime, or that something about time is sub- 
lime, or that something about a chime is concerned 
with time, or that something about a rhyme is sublime 
or concerned with time or with a chime. Wishes 
my opinion of the same, with advice as to his future 
course. 

What shall I do about it? Tell him the whole 
truth, and send him a ticket of admission to the 
Institution for Idiots and Feeble-minded Youth? 
One does n 1 t like to be cruel, — and yet one hates to 
lie. Therefore one softens down the ugly central 
fact of donkeyism, — recommends study of good 
models, — that writing verse should be an incidental 
occupation only, not interfering with the hoe, the 
needle, the lapstone, or the ledger, — and, above all, 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 293 

that there should be no hurry in printing what is 
written. Not the least use in all this. The poetaster 
who has tasted type is done for. He is like the man 
who has once been a candidate for the Presidency. 
He feeds on the madder of his delusion all his days, 
and his very bones grow red with the glow of his 
foolish fancy. One of these young brains is like a 
bunch of India crackers ; once touch fire to it and it 
is best to keep hands off until it has done popping, — 
if it ever stops. I have two letters on file ; one is a 
pattern of adulation, the other of impertinence. My 
reply to the first, containing the best advice I could 
give, conveyed in courteous language, had brought 
out the second. There was some sport in this, but 
Dulness is not commonly a game fish, and only sulks 
after he is struck. You may set it down as a truth 
which admits of few exceptions, that those who ask 
your opinion really want your praise, and will be con- 
tented with nothing less. 

There is another kind of application to which edi- 
tors, or those supposed to have access to them, are 
liable, and which often proves trying and painful. 
One is appealed to in behalf of some person in needy 
circumstances who wishes to make a living by the 
pen. A manuscript accompanying the letter is offered 
for publication. It is not commonly brilliant, too 
often lamentably deficient. If Rachel's saying is 
true, that " fortune is the measure of intelligence," 
then poverty is evidence of limited capacity, which it 
too frequently proves to be, notwithstanding a noble 
exception here and there. Now an editor is a person 
under a contract with the public to furnish them with 
the best things he can afford for his money. Charity 
shown by the publication of an inferior article would 



294 THE AUTOCRAT 

be like the generosity of Claude Duval and the other 
gentlemen highwaymen, who pitied the poor so much 
they robbed the rich to have the means of relieving 
them. 

Though I am not and never was an editor, I know 
something of the trials to which they are submitted. 
They have nothing to do but to develop enormous 
calluses at every point of contact with authorship. 
Their business is not a matter of sympathy, but of 
intellect. They must reject the unfit productions of 
those whom they long to befriend, because it would 
be a profligate charity to accept them. One cannot 
burn his house down to warm the hands even of the 
fatherless and the widow. 

THE PROFESSOR UNDER CHLOROFORM. 

— You have n't heard about my friend the Profes- 
sor's first experiment in the use of anaesthetics, have 
you? 

He was mightily pleased with the reception of that 
poem of his about the chaise. He spoke to me once 
or twice about another poem of similar character he 
wanted to read me, which I told him I would listen to 
and criticize. 

One day, after dinner, he came in with his face tied 
up, looking very red in the cheeks and heavy about 
the eyes. — HyYye? — he said, and made for an arm- 
chair, in which he placed first his hat and then his 
person, going smack through the crown of the former 
as neatly as they do the trick at the circus. The 
Professor jumped at the explosion as if he had sat 
down on one of those small calthrops our grand- 
fathers used to sow round in the grass when there 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 295 

were Indians about, — iron stars, each ray a rusty 
thorn an inch and a half long, — stick through moc- 
casins into feet, — cripple 'em on the spot, and give 
'em lockjaw in a day or two. 

At the same time he let off one of those big words 
which lie at the bottom of the best man's vocabulary, 
but perhaps never turn up in his life, — just as every 
man's hair may stand on end, but in most men it 
never does. 

After he had got calm, he pulled out a sheet or two 
of manuscript, together with a smaller scrap, on which, 
as he said, he had just been writing an introduction 
or prelude to the main performance. A certain sus- 
picion had come into my mind that the Professor was 
not quite right, which was confirmed by the way 
he talked ; but I let him begin. This is the way he 
read it : — 



I'M the fellah that tole one day 
The tale of the won'erful one-hoss-shay. 
Wan' to hear another ? Say. 

— Funny, wasn' it ? Made me laugh, — 
I am too modest, I am, by half, — 
Made me laugh \r though I stid split, — 
Cahn' a fellah like fellah's own wit ? 

— Fellahs keep sayin', — " Well, now, that's nice; 
Did it once, but cahn' do it twice." — 

Don' you b'lieve the'z no more fat ; 
Lots in the kitch'n 'z good 'z that. 
Fus'-rate throw, 'n' no mistake, — 
Han' us the props for another shake ; — 
Know I '11 try, 'n' guess I '11 win; 
Here sh' goes for hit 'm ag'in ! 

Here I thought it necessary to interpose. — Pro- 
fessor, — I said, — you are inebriated. The style of 



296 THE AUTOCRAT 

what you call your " Prelude " shows that it was 
written under cerebral excitement. Your articulation 
is confused. You have told me three times in suc- 
cession, in exactly the same words, that I was the 
only true friend you had in the world that you would 
unbutton your heart to. You smell distinctly and 
decidedly of spirits. — I spoke, and paused; tender, 
but firm. 

Two large tears orbed themselves beneath the Pro- 
fessor's lids, — in obedience to the principle of gravi- 
tation celebrated in that delicious bit of bladdery 
bathos, " The very law that moulds a tear," with 
which the " Edinburgh Review " attempted to put 
down Master George Gordon when that young man 
was foolishly trying to make himself conspicuous. 

One of these tears peeped over the edge of the lid 
until it lost its balance, — slid an inch and waited for 
reinforcements, — swelled again, — rolled down a little 
further, — stopped, — moved on, — and at last fell on 
the back of the Professor's hand. He held it up for 
me to look at, and lifted his eyes, brimful, till they 
met mine. 

I could n't stand it, — I always break down when 
folks cry in my face, so I hugged him, and said he 
was a dear old boy, and asked him kindly what was 
the matter with him, and what made him smell so 
dreadfully strong of spirits. 

Upset his alcohol lamp, — he said, — and spilt the 
alcohol on his legs. That was it. — But what had he 
been doing to get his head into such a state? — had 
he really committed an excess? What was the 
matter? — Then it came out that he had been taking 
chloroform to have a tooth out, which had left him 
in a very queer state, in which he had written the 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 297 

"Prelude" given above, and under the influence of 
which he evidently was still. 

I took the manuscript from his hands and read 
the following continuation of the lines he had begun 
to read me, while he made up for two or three nights' 
lost sleep as he best might. 

PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY: 

OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR. 

A MATHEMATICAL STORY. 

FACTS respecting an old arm-chair. 
At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there. 
Seems but little the worse for wear. 
That 's remarkable when I say- 
It was old in President Holyoke's day* 
(One of his boys, perhaps you know, 
Died, at one hundred, years ago.) 
He took lodging for rain or shine 
Under green bed-clothes in '69. 

Know old Cambridge ? Hope you do. — 
Born there ? Don't say so ! I was, too. 
(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof, — 
Standing still, if you must have proof. — 
" Gambrel ? — Gambrel ? " — Let me beg 
You '11 look at a horse's hinder leg, — 
First great angle above the hoof, — 
That 's the gambrel ; hence gambrel-roof.) 
— Nicest place that ever was seen, — 
Colleges red and Common green, 
Sidewalks brownish with trees between. 
Sweetest spot beneath the skies 
When the canker-worms don't rise, — 
When the dust, that sometimes flies 
Into your mouth and ears and eyes, 
In a quiet slumber lies, 
Not in the shape of unbaked pies 
Such as barefoot children prize. 



298 THE AUTOCRAT 

A kind of harbor it seems to be, 
Facing the flow of a boundless sea. 
Rows of gray old Tutors stand 
Ranged like rocks above the sand ; 
. Rolling beneath them, soft and green, 
Breaks the tide of bright sixteen, — 
One wave, two waves, three waves, four, 
Sliding up the sparkling floor ; 
Then it ebbs to flow no more, 
Wandering off from shore to shore 
With its freight of golden ore ! 

— Pleasant place for boys to play ; — 
Better keep your girls away ; 
Hearts get rolled as pebbles do 
Which countless fingering waves pursue, 
And every classic beach is strown 

With heart-shijped pebbles of blood-red stone. 

But this is neither here nor there ; — 
I 'm talking about an old arm-chair. 
You 've heard, no doubt, of PARSON TURELL ? 
Over at Medford he used to dwell ; 
Married one of the Mathers' folk ; 
Got with his wife a chair of oak, — 
Funny old chair, with seat like wedge, 
Sharp behind and broad front edge, — 
One of the oddest of human things, 
Turned all over with knobs and rings, — 
But heavy and wide, and deep, and grand, — 
Fit for the worthies of the land, — 
Chief-Justice Sewall a cause to try in, 
Or Cotton Mather to sit — and lie — in. 

— Parson Turell bequeathed the same 
To a certain student, — SMITH by name; 
These were the terms, as we are told : 

" Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde ; 

When he doth graduate, then to passe 

To y e oldest Youth in y Senior Classe. 

On Payment of" — (naming a certain sum) — 

u By him to whom y e Chaire shall come ; 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 299 

He to y c oldest Senior next, 
And soe forever," — (thus runs the text,) — 
" But one Crown lesse then he gave to claime, 
That being his Debte for use of same." 

Smith transferred it to one of the BROWNS, 
And took his money, — five silver crowns. 
Brown delivered it up to MOORE, 
Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four. 
Moore made over the chair to Lee, 
Who gave him crowns of silver three. 
Lee conveyed it unto Drew, 
And now the payment, of course, was two. 
Drew gave up the chair to DUNN, — 
All he got, as you see, was one. 
Dunn released the chair to Hall, 
And got by the bargain no crown at all. 

— And now it passed to a second Brown, 
Who took it and likewise claimed a crown. 
When Brown conveyed it unto Ware, 
Having had one crown, to make it fair, 
He paid him two crowns to take the chair; 
And Ware being honest, (as all Wares be,) 
He paid one POTTER, who took it, three. 
Four got Robinson ; five got Dix ; 
JOHNSON primus demanded six; 

And so the sum kept gathering still 
Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill. 

— When paper money became so cheap, 
Folks would n't count it, but said " a heap," 
A certain Richards, the books declare, 
(A. M. in '90? I 've looked with care 
Through the Triennial, — name not there.) 
This person, Richards, was offered then 
Eight score pounds, but would have ten; 
Nine, I think, was the sum he took, — 
Not quite certain, — but see the book. 

— By and by the wars were still, 

But nothing had altered the Parson's will. 
The old arm-chair was solid yet, 



300 THE AUTOCRAT 

But saddled with such a monstrous debt! 
Things grew quite too bad to bear, 
Paying such sums to get rid of the chair! 
But dead men's fingers hold awful tight, 
And there was the will in black and white, 
Plain enough for a child to spell. 
What should be done no man could tell, 
For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse, 
And every season but made it worse. 

As a last resort, to clear the doubt, 
They got old Governor Hancock out. 
The Governor came, with his Light-horse Troop 
And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop; 
Halberds glittered and colors flew, 
French horns whinnied and trumpets blew, 
The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth 
And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath; 
So he rode with all his band, 
Till the President met him, cap in hand. 

— The Governor "hefted" the crowns, and said, — 
" A will is a will, and the Parson 's dead." 

The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he, — > 
" There is your p'int. And here 's my fee. 
These are the terms you must fulfil, — 
On such conditions I break the will! " 
The Governor mentioned what these should be. 
(Just wait a minute and then you '11 see.) 
The President prayed. Then all was still, 
And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL! 

— "About those conditions? " Well, now, you go 
And do as I tell you, and then you '11 know. 
Once a year, on Commencement-day, 

If you'll only take the pains to stay, 
You '11 see the President in the CHAIR, 
Likewise the Governor sitting there. 
The President rises ; both old and young 
May hear his speech in a foreign tongue, 
The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear, 
Is this : Can I keep this old arm-chair? 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 30I 

And then his Excellency bows, 

As much as to say that he allows. 

The Vice-Gub. next is called by name ; 

He bows like t' other, which means the same. 

And all the officers round 'em bow, 

As much as to say that they allow. 

And a lot of parchments about the chair 

Are handed to witnesses then and there, 

And then the lawyers hold it clear 

That the chair is safe for another year. 

God bless you, Gentlemen ! Learn to give 
Money to colleges while you live. 
Don't be silly and think you '11 try 
To bother the colleges, when you die, 
With codicil this, and codicil that, 
That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat; 
For there never was pitcher that would n't spill, 
And there 's always a flaw in a donkey's will ! 

— Hospitality is a good deal a matter of latitude, I 
suspect. The shade of a palm-tree serves an Afri- 
can for a hut ; his dwelling is all door and no walls ; 
everybody can come in. To make a morning call on 
an Esquimaux acquaintance, one must creep through 
a long tunnel ; his house is all walls and no door, ex- 
cept such a one as an apple with a worm-hole has. 
One might, very probably, trace a regular gradation 
between these two extremes. In cities where the 
evenings are generally hot, the people have porches 
at their doors, where they sit, and this is of course, a 
provocative to the interchange of civilities. A good 
deal, which in colder regions is ascribed to mean dis- 
positions, belongs really to mean temperature. 

Once in a while, even in our Northern cities, at 
noon, in a very hot summer's day, one may realize, 
by a sudden extension in his sphere of conscious- 
ness, how closely he is shut up for the most part. — 



302 THE AUTOCRAT 

Do you not remember something like this? July, 
between i and 2, p.m., Fahrenheit 96 , or there- 
about. Windows all gaping, like the mouths of pant- 
ing dogs. Long, stinging cry of a locust comes in 
from a tree, half a mile off; had forgotten there was 
such a tree. Baby's screams from a house several 
blocks distant ; — never knew there were any babies in 
the neighborhood before. Tinman pounding some- 
thing that clatters dreadfully, — very distinct, but 
don't remember any tinman's shop near by. Horses 
stamping on pavement to get off flies. When you 
hear these four sounds, you may set it down as a 
warm day. Then it is that one would like to imitate 
the mode of life of the native at Sierra Leone, as 
somebody has described it : stroll into the market 
in natural costume, — buy a watermelon for a half- 
penny, — split it, and scoop out the middle, — sit 
down in one half of the empty rind, clap the other 
on one's head, and feast upon the pulp. 

— I see some of the London journals have been 
attacking some of their literary people for lecturing, 
on the ground of its being a public exhibition of 
themselves for money. A popular author can print 
his lecture ; if he deliver it, it is a case of qucestum 
cor pore, or making profit of his person. None but 
" snobs " do that. Ergo, etc. To this I reply, — 
Negatur minor. Her Most Gracious Majesty, the 
Queen, exhibits herself to the public as a part of the 
service for which she is paid. We do not consider 
it low-bred in her to pronounce her own speech, and 
should prefer it so to hearing it from any other per- 
son, or reading it. His Grace and his Lordship 
exhibit themselves very often for popularity, and their 
houses every day for money. — No, if a man shows 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 303 

himself other than he is, if he belittles himself before 
an audience for hire, then he acts unworthily. But a 
true word, fresh from the lips of a true man, is worth 
paying for, at the rate of eight dollars a day, or even 
of fifty dollars a lecture. The taunt must be an out- 
break of jealousy against the renowned authors who 
have the audacity to be also orators. The sub-lieu- 
tenants (of the press) stick a too popular writer 
and speaker with an epithet in England, instead of 
with a rapier, as in France. — Poh ! All England is 
one great menagerie, and, all at once, the jackal, who 
admires the gilded cage of the royal beast, must pro- 
test against the vulgarity of the talking-bird's and the 
nightingale's being willing to become a part of the 
exhibition ! 

THE LONG PATH. 

{Last of the Parentheses .) 

Yes, that was my last walk with the schoolmistress. 
It happened to be the end of a term ; and before the 
next began, a very nice young woman, who had been 
her assistant, was announced as her successor, and 
she was provided for elsewhere. So it was no longer 
the schoolmistress that I walked with, but — Let 
us not be in unseemly haste. I shall call her the 
schoolmistress still ; some of you love her under that 
name. 

— When it became know T n among the boarders that 
two of their number had joined hands to walk down 
the long path of life side by side, there was, as you 
may suppose, no small sensation. I confess I pitied 
our landlady. It took her all of a suddin, — she said. 
Had not known that we was keepin' company, and 



304 THE AUTOCRAT . 

never mistrusted anything particular. Ma'am was 
right to better herself. Did n't look very rugged to 
take care of a femily, but could get hired haalp, she 
calc'lated. — The great maternal instinct came crowd- 
ing up in her soul, just then, and her eyes wandered 
until they settled on her daughter. 

— No, poor, dear woman, — that could not have 
been. But I am dropping one of my internal tears 
for you, with this pleasant smile on my face all the 
time. 

The great mystery of God's providence is the per- 
mitted crushing out of flowering instincts. Life is 
maintained by the respiration of oxygen and of senti- 
ments. In the long catalogue of scientific cruelties 
there is hardly anything quite so painful to think of 
as that experiment of putting an animal under the 
bell of an air-pump and exhausting the air from it. 
[I never saw the accursed trick performed. Laus 
Deo!] There comes a time when the souls of human 
beings, women, perhaps, more even than men, begin 
to faint for the atmosphere of the affections they 
were made to breathe. Then it is that Society places 
its transparent bell-glass over the young woman who 
is to be the subject of one of its fatal experiments. 
The element by which only the heart lives is sucked 
out of her crystalline prison. Watch her through its 
transparent walls; — her bosom is heaving; but it is 
in a vacuum. Death is no. riddle, compared to this. 
I remember a poor girl's story in the Book of Mar- 
tyrs. The " dry-pan and the gradual fire" were the 
images that frightened her most. How many have 
withered and wasted under as slow a torment in the 
walls of that larger Inquisition which we call Civ- 
ilization ! 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 305 

Yes, my surface-thought laughs at you, you foolish, 
plain, over-dressed, mincing, cheaply-organized, self- 
saturated young person, whoever you may be, now 
reading this, — little thinking you are what I describe, 
and in blissful unconsciousness that you are destined 
to the lingering asphyxia of soul which is the lot of 
such multitudes worthier than yourself. But it is 
only my surface-thought , which laughs. For that 
great procession of the unloved, who not only wear 
the crown of thorns, but must hide it under the locks 
of brown or gray, — under the snowy cap, under the 
chilling turban, — hide it even from themselves, — 
perhaps never know they wear it, though it kills 
them, — there is no depth of tenderness in my nature 
that Pity has not sounded. Somewhere, — some- 
where, — love is in store for them, — the universe 
must not be allowed to fool them so cruelly. What 
infinite pathos in the small, half-unconscious artifices by 
which unattractive young persons seek to recommend 
themselves to the favor of those towards whom our 
dear sisters, the unloved, like the rest, are impelled 
by their God-given instincts ! 

Read what the singing-women — one to ten thou- 
sand of the suffering women — tell us, and think of 
the griefs that die unspoken! Nature is in earnest 
when she makes a woman ; and there are women 
enough lying in the next churchyard with very com- 
monplace blue slate-stones at their head and feet, for 
whom it was just as true that "all sounds of life 
assumed one tone of love," as for Letitia Landon, of 
whom Elizabeth Browning said it ; but she could give 
words to her grief, and they could not. — Will you 
hear a few stanzas of mine ? 



306 THE AUTOCRAT 



THE VOICELESS. 

WE count the broken lyres that rest 

Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, — 
But o'er their silent sister's breast 

The wild flowers who will stoop to number ? 
A few can touch the magic string, 

And noisy Fame is proud to win them ; 
Alas for those that never sing, 

But die with all their music in them ! 

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone 

Whose song has told their hearts' sad story, — 
Weep for the voiceless, who have known 

The cross without the crown of glory ! 
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep 

O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, 
But where the glistening night-dews weep 

On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow. 

O hearts that break and give no sign 

Save whitening lip and fading tresses, 
Till Death pours out his cordial wine 

Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses, — 
If singing breath or echoing chord 

To every hidden pang were given, 
What endless melodies were poured, 

As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven ! 

I hope that our landlady's daughter is not so badly 
off, after all. That young man from another city, 
who made the remark which you remember about 
Boston State-house and Boston folks, has appeared 
at our table repeatedly of late, and has seemed to me 
rather attentive to this young lady. Only last even- 
ing I saw him leaning over her while she was playing 
the accordion, — indeed, I undertook to join them in 
a song, and got as far as " Come rest in this boo-oo," 
when, my voice getting tremulous, I turned off, as one 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 307 

steps out of a procession, and left the basso and 
soprano to finish it. • I see no reason why this young 
woman should not be a very proper match for a man 
that laughs about Boston State-house. He can't be 
very particular. 

The young fellow whom I have so often mentioned 
was a little free in his remarks, but very good-natured. 

— Sorry to have you go, — he said. — Schoolma'am 
made a mistake not to wait for me. Have n't taken 
anything but mournm' fruit at breakfast since I heard 
of it. — Mourning f ririt, — said I, — what 's that ? — 
Huckleberries and blackberries, — said he ; — could n't 
eat in colors, raspberries, currants, and such, after 
a solemn thing like this happening. — The conceit 
seemed to please the young fellow. If you will 
believe it, when we came dow r n to breakfast the next 
morning, he had carried it out as follows. You know 
those odious little " saas-plates " that figure so largely 
at boarding-houses, and especially at taverns, into 
which a strenuous attendant female trowels little 
dabs, sombre of tint and heterogeneous of composi- 
tion, which it makes you feel homesick to look at, 
and into which you poke the elastic coppery teaspoon 
with the air of a cat dipping her foot into a wash-tub, 

— (not that I mean to say anything against them, 
for, when they are of tinted porcelain or starry many- 
faceted crystal, and hold clean bright berries, or pale 
virgin honey, or " lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon, 1 ' 
and the teaspoon is of white silver, with the Tower- 
stamp, solid, but not brutally heavy, — as people in 
the green stage of millionism will have them, — I can 
dally with their amber semi-fluids or glossy spherules 
without a shiver,) — you know these small, deep 
dishes, I say. When we came down the next morn- 



308 THE AUTOCRAT 

ing, each of these (two only excepted) was covered 
with a broad leaf. On lifting this, each boarder found 
a small heap of solemn black huckleberries. But one 
of those plates held red currants, and was covered 
with a red rose ; the other held white currants, and 
was covered with a white rose. There was a laugh 
at this at first, and then a short silence, and I noticed 
that her lip trembled, and the old gentleman opposite 
was in trouble to get at his bandanna handkerchief. 

— " What was the use in waiting ? We should 
be too late for Switzerland, that season, if we waited 
much longer. " — The hand I held trembled in mine, 
and the eyes fell meekly, as Esther bowed herself 
before the feet of Ahasuerus. — She had been reading 
that chapter, for she looked up, — if there was a film 
of moisture over her eyes there was also the faintest 
shadow of a distant smile skirting her lips, but not 
enough to accent the dimples, — and said, in her 
pretty, still way, — " If it please the king, and if I 
have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem 
right before the king, and I be pleasing in his 
eyes — " 

I don't remember what King Ahasuerus did or said 
when Esther got just to that point of her soft, humble 
words, — but I know what I did. That quotation from 
Scripture was cut short, anyhow.- We came to a com- 
promise on the great question, and the time was set- 
tled for the last day of summer. 

In the mean time, I talked on with our boarders, 
much as usual, as you may see by what I have reported. 
I must say, I was pleased with a certain tenderness 
they all showed towards us, after the first excitement 
of the news was over. It came out in trivial matters, 
— but each one, in his or her way, manifested kind- 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 309 

ness. Our landlady, for instance, when we had 
chickens, sent the liver instead of the gizzard, with 
the wing, for the schoolmistress. This was not an 
accident ; the two are never mistaken, though some 
landladies appear as if they did not know the differ- 
ence. The whole of the company were even more 
respectfully attentive to my remarks than usual. 
There was no idle punning, and very little winking 
on the part of that lively young gentleman who, as 
the reader may remember, occasionally interposed 
some playful question or remark, which could hardly 
be considered relevant, — except when the least allu- 
sion was made to matrimony, when he would look at 
the landlady's daughter, and wink with both sides of 
his face, until she would ask what he was pokin 1 his 
fun at her for, and if he was n't ashamed of himself. 
In fact, they all behaved very handsomely, so that I 
really felt sorry at the thought of leaving my board- 
ing-house. 

I suppose you think, that, because I lived at a plain 
widow-woman's plain table, I was of course more or 
less infirm in point of worldly fortune. You may not 
be sorry to learn, that, though not what great mer- 
chants call very rich, I was comfortable, — comforta- 
ble, — so that most of those moderate luxuries I 
described in my verses on Contentment — most of 
them, I say — were within our reach, if we chose to 
have them. But I found out that the schoolmistress 
had a vein of charity about her, which had hitherto 
been worked on a small silver and copper basis, 
which made her think less, perhaps, of luxuries than 
even I did, — modestly as I have expressed my 
wishes. 

It is a rather pleasant thing to tell a poor young 



310 THE AUTOCRAT 

woman, whom one has contrived to win without 
showing his rent-roll, that she has found what the 
world values so highly, in following the lead of her 
affections. That was an enjoyment I was now ready 
for. 

I began abruptly : — Do you know that you are a 
rich young person ? 

I know that I am very rich, — she said. — Heaven 
has given me more than I ever asked ; for I had not 
thought love was ever meant for me. 

It was a woman's confession, and her voice fell to 
a whisper as it threaded the last words. 

I don't mean that, — I said, — you blessed little 
saint and seraph ! — if there 's an angel missing in 
the New Jerusalem, inquire for her at this boarding- 
house ! — I don't mean that ! I mean that I — that 
is, you — am — are — confound it ! — I mean that 
you '11 be what most people call a lady of fortune. — 
And I looked full in her eyes for the effect of the 
announcement. 

There was n't any. She said she was thankful 
that I had what would save me from drudgery, and 
that some other time I should tell her about it. — I 
never made a greater failure in an attempt to produce 
a sensation. 

So the last day of summer came. It was our choice 
to go to the church, but we had a kind of reception 
at the boarding-house. The presents were all ar- 
ranged, and among them none gave more pleasure 
than the modest tributes of our fellow-boarders, — for 
there was not one, I believe, who did not send some- 
thing. The landlady would insist on making an. 
elegant bride-cake, with her own hands ; to which 
Master Benjamin Franklin wished to add certain 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 311 

embellishments out of his private funds, — namely, a 
Cupid in a mouse-trap, done in white sugar, and two 
miniature flags with the stars and stripes, which had 
a very pleasing effect, I assure you. The landlady's 
daughter sent a richly bound copy of T upper's Poems. 
On a blank leaf was the following, written in a very 
delicate and careful hand : — 

Presented to . . . by . . . 
On the eve ere her union in holy matrimony. 
May sunshine ever beam o'er her. 

Even the poor relative thought she must do some- 
thing, and sent a copy of The Whole Duty of Man, 
bound in very attractive variegated sheepskin, the 
edges nicely marbled. From the divinity-student 
came the loveliest English edition of Keble^s Chris- 
tian Year. I opened it, when it came, to the " Fourth 
Sunday in Lent, 1 ' and read that angelic poem, sweeter 
than anything I can remember since Xavier's " My 
God, I love thee. ,, — I am not a Churchman, — I 
don't believe in planting oaks in flower-pots, — but 
such a poem as " The Rosebud " makes one's heart a 
proselyte to the culture it grows from. Talk about it 
as much as you like, — one's breeding shows itself 
nowhere more than in his religion. A man should 
be a gentleman in his hymns and prayers ; the fond- 
ness for " scenes," among vulgar saints, contrasts so 
meanly with that — 

" God only and good angels look 
Behind the blissful scene," — 

and that other, — 

11 He could not trust his melting soul 
But in his Maker's sight," — 



312 THE AUTOCRAT 

that I hope some of them will see this, and read the 
poem, and profit by it. 

My laughing and winking young friend undertook 
to procure and arrange the flowers for the table, and 
did it with immense zeal. I never saw him look hap- 
pier than when he came in, his hat saucily on one 
side, and a cheroot in his mouth, with a huge bunch 
of tea-roses, which he said were for " Madam." 

One of the last things that came was an old square 
box, smelling of camphor, tied and sealed. It bore, 
in faded ink, the marks, " Calcutta, 1805. " On open- 
ing it, we found a white Cashmere shawl, with a very 
brief note from the dear old gentleman opposite, say- 
ing that he had kept this some years, thinking he 
might want it, and many more, not knowing what to 
do with it, — that he had never seen it unfolded since 
he was a young supercargo, — and now, if she would 
spread it on her shoulders, it would make him feel 
young to look at it. 

Poor Bridget, or Biddy our red-armed maid of all 
work ! What must she do but buy a small copper 
breast-pin and put it under " Schoolma^nVs " plate 
that morning, at breakfast ? And Schoolma'am would 
wear it, — though I made her cover it, as well as I 
could, with a tea-rose. 

It was my last breakfast as a boarder, and I could 
not leave them in utter silence. 

Good-by, — I said, — my dear friends, one and all of 
you ! I have been long with you, and I find it hard 
parting. I have to thank you for a thousand courte- 
sies, and above all for the patience and indulgence 
with which you have listened to me when I have tried 
to instruct or amuse you. My friend the Professor, 
(who, as well as my friend the Poet, is unavoidably 



OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 313 

absent on this interesting occasion) has given me 
reason to suppose that he would occupy my empty 
chair about the first of January next. If he comes 
among you, be kind to him. as you have been to me. 
May the Lord bless you all ! — And we shook hands 
all round the table. 

Half an hour afterwards the breakfast things and the 
cloth were gone. I looked up and down the length 
of the bare boards over which I had so often uttered 
my sentiments and experiences — and — Yes, I am a 
man, like another. 

All sadness vanished, as, in the midst of these old 
friends of mine, whom you know, and others a little 
more up in the world, perhaps, to whom I have not 
introduced you, I took the schoolmistress before the 
altar from the hands of the old gentleman who used 
to sit opposite, and who would insist on giving her 
away. 

And now we two are walking the long path in 
peace together. The "schoolmistress" finds her skill 
in teaching called for again, without going abroad to 
seek little scholars. Those visions of mine have all 
come true. 

I hope you all love me none the less for anything I 
have told you. Farewell ! 



INDEX. 



Abuse, all good attempts get, 

■ 78. 

^Estivation, 265. 

Affinities and antipathies, 221. 

Age, softening effects of, 79; 
begins when fire goes down, 
150; Roman age of enlist- 
ment, 151 ; its changes a 
string of insults, 153. 

A good time going, 224. 

Air-pump, animal under, 304. 

Album Verses, 15. 

Alps, effect of looking at, 268. 

American, the Englishman re- 
inforced (a noted person 
thinks), 240. 

Analogies, power of seeing, 
80. 

Anatomist's Hymn, The, 174. 

Anglo-Saxons die out in Amer- 
ica (Dr. Knox thinks), 240. 

Anniversaries dreaded by the 
Professor, and why, 223. 

Arguments, what are those 
which spoil conversation, 10. 

Aristocracy, the forming Amer- 
ican, 261; pluck the back- 
bone of, 263. 

Artists apt to act mechanically 
on their brains, 188. 



Assessors, Heaven's, effect of 
meeting one of them, 90. 

Asylum, the, 249. 

Audience, average intellect of, 
139 ; aspect of, 140 ; a com- 
pound vertebrate, 141. 

Audiences, very nearly alike, 
140 ; good feeling and intel- 
ligence of, 141. 

Author does not hate anybody, 
220. 

Authors, jockeying of, 34; 
purr if skilfully handled, 47 ; 
ashamed of being funny, 47 ; 
hate those who call them 
droll, 47 ; always praise after 
fifty, 79. 

Automatic principles appear 
more prevalent the more we 
study, 83 ; mental actions, 

133- 
Averages, their awful uniform- 
ity, 140. 

B. 

Babies, old, 154. 

Bacon, Lord, 273. 

Balzac, 149, 273. 

Beauties, vulgar, their virtuous 

indignation on being looked 

at, 195. 



315 



3i6 



INDEX. 



Beliefs like ancient drinking- 
glasses, 14. 

Bell-glass, young woman un- 
der, 304. 

Benicia Boy, not challenged 
by the Professor, and why, 
172. 

Benjamin Franklin, the land- 
lady's son, 12, 50, 55, 77, 84, 
114, 134, 247, 310. 

Berkshire, 237, 247, 267. 

Berne, leap from the platform 
at, 283. 

Blake, Mr., his Jesse Rural, 88. 

Blondes, two kinds of, 184. 

" Blooded " horses, 34. 

Boat, the Professor's own, de- 
scription of, 168. 

Boating, the Professor de- 
scribes his, 164. 

Boats, the Professor's fleet of, 
164. 

Books, hating, 60; society a 
strong solution of, 60; the 
mind sometimes feels above 
them, 130; a man's and a 
woman's reading, 277. 

Bores, all men are, except 
when we want them, 6. 

Boston, seven wise men of, 
their sayings, 123. 

Bowie-knife, the Roman gla- 
dius modified, 18. 

Brain, upper and lower stories 
of, 179; attempts to reach 
mechanically, 187. 

Brains, seventy-year clocks, 
186 ; containing ovarian 
eggs, how to know them, 
197. 



Bridget becomes a caryatid, 
99; presents a breast-pin, 
312. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, admira- 
ble sentiment of, 90. 

Browning, Elizabeth, 305. 

Bruce's Address, alteration of, 
44. 

Bulbous-headed people, 5. 

Bunker-hill monument, rock- 
ing of, 285. 

Byron, his line about striking 
the electric chain, 76. 



Cache, children make instinct- 
ively, 206. 

Calamities, grow old rapidly 
in proportion to their mag- 
nitude, 29; the recollection 
of, returns after the first sleep 
as if new, 30. 

Calculating machine, 8 ; power, 
least human of qualities, 8. 

Call him not old, 173. 

Campbell, misquotation of, 

69. 

Canary-bird, swimming move- 
ments of, 83. 

Cant terms, use of, 258. 

Carlyle, his article on Boswell, 
282. 

Carpenter's bench, Author 
works at, 180. 

Chambers Street, 274. 

Chamouni, 269. 

Characteristics, Carlyle's arti- 
cle, 53. 

Charles Street, 275. 



INDEX. 



317 



Chaucer compared to an 
Easter-Beurre, 80. 

Chess-playing, conversation 
compared to, 62. 

Children, superstitious little 
wretches and spiritual cow- 
ards, 205. 

Chloroform, Professor, the, 
under, 294. 

Chryso-aristocracy, our, the 
weak point in, 262. 

Cicero de Senectute, Professor 
reads, 150; his treatise de 
Senectute, 156. 

Cincinnati, how not to pro- 
nounce, 287. 

Circles, intellectual, 268. 

Cities, some of the smaller 
ones charming, 126 ; leaking 
of nature into, 275. 

Clergy rarely hear sermons, 
26/ 

Clergymen, their patients not 
always truthful, 84. 

Clock of the Andover Semi- 
nary, 287. 

Closet full of sweet smells, 76. 

Clubs, advantages of, 61. 

Coat, constructed on a priori 
grounds, 65. 

Cobb, Sylvanus, Jr., 16. 

Coffee, 248, 250. 

Cold-blooded creatures, 129. 

Coleridge, his remark on liter- 
ary men's needing a profes- 
sion, 180. 

Coliseum, visit to, 282. 

Comet, the late, 22. 

Commencement day, like the 
start for the Derby, 92. 



Common sense, as we under- 
stand it, 14. 

Communications received by 
the Author, 288. 

Company, the sad, 249. 

Conceit bred by little localized 
powers and narrow streaks 
of knowledge, 8 ; natural to 
the mind as a centre to a 
circle, 9 ; uses of, 9 ; makes 
people cheerful, 9. 

Constitution, American female, 
40 ; in choice of summer res- 
idence, 267. 

Contentment, 270. 

Controversy, hydrostatic para- 
dox of, 112. 

Conundrums indulged in by 
the company, 253 ; rebuked 
by the Author, 254. 

Conversation, very serious 
matter, 5; with some per- 
sons weakening, 5; great 
faults of, 10; spoiled by cer- 
tain kinds of argument, 10 ; 
a code of finalities necessary 
to, 10; compared to Italian 
game of mora, 14; shapes 
our thoughts, 25 ; B/air-ing 
of reported, 37 ; one of the 
fine arts, 49; compared to 
chess-playing, 62; depends 
on how much is taken for 
granted, 62; of Lecturers, 
62. 

Cookeson, William, of All- 
Souls' College, 85. 

Copley, his portrait of the mer- 
chant-uncle, 20 ; of the great- 
grandmother, 20. 



3i8 



INDEX. 



11 Correspondent, our For- 
eign," 116. 

Counterparts of people in 
many different cities, 138. 

Cowper, 185 ; his lines on his 
mother's portrait, 283; his 
lines on the " Royal George," 
283. 

Creed, the Author's, 86. 

Crinoline, Otaheitan, 18. 

Crow and king-bird, 27. 

Curls, flat circular, on temples, 
17. 

D. 

Dandies, uses of, 259; illus- 
trious ones, 260, 261 ; men 
are born, 261. 

Davidson, Lucretia and Mar- 
garet, 185. 

Deacon's Masterpiece, The, 

254. 
Death as a form of rhetoric, 

131 ; introduction to, 210. 
Deerfield, elm in, 287. 
Devizes, woman struck dead 

at, 284. 
Dighton Rock, inscription on, 

248. 
Dimensions, three, of solids, 

handling ideas as if they 

had, 82. 
Divinity, doctors of, many 

people qualified to be, 26. 
Divinity Student, the, 1, 39, 80, 

82, 84, 86, 99, 108, 123, 124, 

131, 134, 182, 188, 193, 197, 

205, 221, 231, 253, 260, 263, 

3". 



Doctor, old, his catalogue of 
books for light reading, 

157. 

Drinking-glasses, ancient, be- 
liefs like, 14. 

Droll, authors dislike to be 
called, 47. 

Drunkenness often a punish- 
ment, 191. 

Dull persons great comforts at 
times, 5 ; happiness of find- 
ing we are, 59. 

E. 

Ears, voluntary movement of, 
8. * 

Earth, not ripe yet, 22. 

Earthquake, to launch Levia- 
than, 70. 

Eblis, hall of, 249. 

Editors, appeals to their be- 
nevolence, 293; must get 
calluses, 294. 

Education, professional, most 
of our people have had, 26. 

Eggs, Ovarian, intellectual, 
196. 

Elm, American, 234; the great 
Johnston, 235 ; Hatfield, 236 ; 
Sheffield, 237 ; West Spring- 
field, 236; Pittsfield, 238; 
Newburyport, 238; Cohas- 
set, 238 ; English and Amer- 
ican, comparison of, 239. 

Elms, Springfield, 236; first 
class, 236 ; second class, 237 ; 
Mr. Paddock's row of, 241 ; 
in Andover, 286; in Nor- 
wich, 287 ; in Deerfield, 287 ; 



INDEX. 



319 



in Lancaster, two very large 

ones. See Lancaster. 
Emotions strike us obliquely, 

282. 
Epithets follow isothermal 

lines, 113. 
Erasmus, colloquies of, 85; 

naufragium or shipwreck of, 

85- 

Erectile heads, men of genius 
with, 6. 

Essays, diluted, 64. 

Essex Street, 274. 

Esther, Queen, and Ahasue- 
rus, 308. 

Eternity, remembering one's 
self in, 201. 

Everlasting, the herb, its sug- 
gestions, 74. 

Exercise, scientifically exam- 
ined, 167. 

Ex pede Herculem, 108. 

Experience, a solemn fowl; 
her eggs, 273. 

Experts in crime and suffering, 

F. 

Faces, negative, 140. 

Facts, horror of generous 
minds for what are com- 
monly called, 4; the brute 
beasts of the intelligence, 4 ; 
men of, 142. 

Family, man of, 19. 

Fancies, youthful, 269. 

Farewell, the Author's, 313. 

Fault found with everything 
worth saying, no. 

Feeling that we have been in 



the same condition before, 

70; modes of explaining it, 

71, 72. 
Feelings, every person's, have 

a front-door and a side-door, 

127. 
Fifty cents, a figure of rhetoric, 

264. 
Flash phraseology, 259. 
Flavor, nothing knows its own, 

53- 

Fleet of our companions, 91. 

Flowers, why poets talk so 
much of, 230. 

Franklin-place, front-yards in, 
274. 

French exercise, Benj. Frank- 
lin's, 55, 135. 

Friends, shown up by story- 
tellers, 58. 

Friendship does not authorize 
one to say disagreeable 
things, 59. 

Front-door and side-door to 
our feelings, 127. 

Fruit, green, intellectual, these 
United States a great mar- 
ket for, 263 ; mourning, 307. 

Fuel, carbon and bread and 
cheese are equally, 156. 

Funny, authors ashamed of 
being, 47. 

" Fust-rate " and other vulgar- 
isms, 26. 

G. 

Geese for swans, 275. 
Genius, a weak flavor of, 3 ; 
the advent of, a surprise, 53. 



320 



INDEX. 



Gift-enterprises, Nature's, 52. 

Gilbert, the French poet, 185. 

Gil Bias, the archbishop served 
him right, 48; motto from, 
200. 

Gilpin, Daddy, 233. 

Girls' story in " Book of Mar- 
tyrs," 304 ; two young, their 
fall from gallery, 282. 

Grzzard and Liver never con- 
founded, 309. 

Good-by, the Author's, 312. 

Grammar, higher law in, 37. 

Gravestones, transplanting of, 
241. 

Green fruit, intellectual, 263. 

Ground-bait, literary, 35. 



H. 

Habit, what its essence is, 155. 

Hand, the great wooden, 206. 

" Haow ? " whether final, 108. 

Hat, the old gentleman op- 
posite's white, 177; the au- 
thor's youthful Leghorn, 177. 

Hats, aphorisms concerning, 
178. 

Hearts, inscriptions on, 248. 

Heresy, burning for, experts in, 
would be found in any large 
city, 31. 

Historian, the quotation from, 
on punning, 12. 

Honey, emptying the jug of, 

17. 

Horses, what they feed on, 167. 
Hospitality depends on lati- 
tude, 301. 



Hot day, sounds of, 302. 

Hotel de I 'Univers et des Etats 
Unis, 124. 

Housatonic, the Professor's 
dwelling by, 246. 

Houses, dying out of, 243; 
killed by commercial 
smashes, 243; shape them- 
selves upon our natures, 244. 

House, the body we live in, 
243; Irishman's at Cam- 
bridgeport, 19. 

Houynhnm Gazette, 229. 

Huckleberries, hail-storm of, 
231. 

Hull, how Pope's line is read 
there, 127. 

Huma, story of, 7. 

Humanities, cumulative, 21. 

Hyacinth, blue, 230, 231. 

Hysterics, 88. 

I. 

Ice in wine-glass, tinkling like 
cow-bells, 75. 

Ideas, age of, in our memor- 
ies, 29 ; handling them as if 
they had the three dimen- 
sions of solids, 82. 

Imponderables move the 
world, 134. 

Impromptus, 15. 

Inherited traits show very 
early, 195. 

Insanity, the logic of an ac- 
curate mind overtasked, 38 ; 
becomes a duty under cer- 
tain circumstances, 39. 

Instincts, crushing out of, 304. 



INDEX. 



321 



Intemperance, the Author dis- 
courses of, 188. 

Intermittent, poetical, 250. 

Inventive Power, economically 
used, 240. 

Iris, cut the yellow hair, 69. 

Irishman's house at Cam- 
bridgeport, 19. 

Island, the, 36. 



Jailers and undertakers mag- 
netize people, 31. 

Jaundice, as a token of affec- 
tion, 131. 

John and Thomas, their dia- 
logue of six persons, 51. 

John, the young fellow- called, 
52, 62, 71, jj, 99, no, 174, 
188, 193, 194, 209, 219, 232, 
253. 258, 264, 307, 312. 

Johnson, Dr., his remark on 
attacks, 112 ; lines to Thrale, 

ad- 
judgment, standard of, how to 
establish, 14. 

K. 

Keats, 185. 

Keble, his poem, 311. 

" Kerridge," and other charac- 
teristic expressions, 107. 

Kirke White, 185. 

Knowledge, little streaks of 
specialized, breed conceit, 
8. 

Knuckles, marks of, on broken 
glass, 107. 



Lady, the real, not sensitive if 
looked at, 195. 

Lady-boarder, the, with auto- 
graph book, 5. 

Landlady, 50, jj y 105, 303, 
310. 

Landlady's daughter, 15, 17, 
54, 137, 138, 222, 232, 306, 

3". 

Latter-day Warnings, 22. 

Laughter and tears, wind and 
water-power, 88. 

Lecturers, grooves in their 
minds, 62 ; talking in streaks 
out of their lectures, 63; 
get homesick, 142; attacks 
upon, 302. 

Lectures, feelings connected 
with their delivery, 138 ; pop- 
ular, what they should have, 
139; old, 139; what they 
ought to be, 139. 

Leibnitz, remark of, 1. 

Les Societes Polyphysiophilo- 
sophiques, 135. 

Letter to an ambitious young 
man, 289. 

Letters with various requests, 
68. 

Leviathan, launch of, 70. 

Life, experience of, 29; com- 
pared to transcript of it, 57 ; 
compared to books, 132; 
divisible into fifteen periods, 
154; early, revelations con- 
cerning, 203 ; its experiences, 
278. 

Lilac leaf buds, 230, 231. 



322 



INDEX. 



Lion, the leaden one at Aln- 
wick, 283. 

Liston thought himself a tragic 
actor, 89. 

Literary pickpockets, 49. 

Living Temple, The, 174. 

Lochiel rocked in cradle when 
old, 79. 

Log, using old schoolmates as, 
to mark our rate of sailing, 
91. 

Logical minds, what they do, 

13. 
Long path, the, 303; walking 

together, 313. 
Landon, Letitia, 305. 
Love-capacity, 272. 
Love, introduction to, 211; its 

relative solubility in the 

speech of men and women, 

273. 
Ludicrous, a divine idea, 90. 
Luniversary, return of, 47. 
Lyric conception hits like a 

bullet, 97. 

M. 

Macaulay-flowers of Litera- 
ture, 13. 

" Magazine, Northern," got 
up by the " Come-Outers," 
119. 

Maine, willows in, 288. 

Man of family, 19. 

Map, photograph of, on the 
wall, 245. 

Mare Rubrum, 121. 

Marigold, its suggestions, 73. 

Mather, Cotton, 64, 298. 



Meerschaums and poems must 
be kept and used, ioo, 102. 

Men, self-made, 19; all, love 
all women, 222. 

Mesalliance, dreadful conse- 
quences of, 216. 

Middle-aged female, takes of- 
fence, 28. 

Millionism, green stage of, 307. 

Milton compared to a Saint 
Germain pear, etc., 80. 

Mind, automatic actions of, 

133. 

Minds, classification of, 1; 
jerky ones fatiguing, 5 ; log- 
ical, what they do, 13; calm 
and clear best basis for love 
and friendship, 130 ; satura- 
tion point of, 131. 

Minister, my old, his remarks 
on want of attention, 28. 

Misery, a great one puts a new 
stamp on us, 31. 

Misfortune, professional deal- 
ers in, 31. 

Misprints, 45. 

Molasses, Melasses, or Mo- 
lossa's, 64. 

Mora, Italian game of, conver- 
sation compared to, 14. 

Moralist, the great, quotation 
from, on punning, 12. 

Mountains and sea, 265. 

Mourning fruit, 307. 

Mug, the bitten, 201. 

Muliebrity and femineity in 
voice, 217. 

Musa, 251. 

Muscular powers, when they 
decline, 156. 



INDEX. 



323 



Muse, the, 251. 

Musicians, odd movements of, 

S3- 

Music, its effects different from 
thought, 131. 

Mutual Admiration, Society 
Of, 2. 

My Lady's Cheek (verse) , 153. 

Myrtle Street, discovered by 
the Professor, 166 ; descrip- 
tion of, 166 ; garden in, 274. 

N. 

Nahant, 267. 

Nature, Amen of, 231 ; leaking 

of, into cities, 275. 
Nautilus, the Chambered, 95. 
Nerve-playing, masters of, 128. 
Nerve-tapping, 5. 
Nerve, olfactory, connection 

of, with brain, 74. 
Newton, his speech about the 

child and the pebbles, 81, 
Norwich, elms in, 287 ; how 

not to pronounce, 287. 
Novel, one, everybody has 

stuff for, 57 ; why I do not 

write, 57. 

O. 

Oak, its one mark of suprem- 
acy, 234. 

Ocean, the two men walking 
by, 81. 

Old age, starting point of, 151 ; 
allegory of, 151 ; approach 
of, 152; habits the great 
mark of, 155 ; how nature 



cheats us into, 155 ; in the 
Professor's contemporaries, 
160; remedies for, 163; ex- 
cellent remedy for, 173. 
Old Gentlemen opposite, the, 
3, 5o, 59, 84, 98, 174, 
177, 178, 197, 210, 212, 312, 

313. 

Old man, a person startled 
when he first hears himself 
called so, 154. 

Old men, always poets if they 
ever have been, 99. 

Omens, of childhood, 206, 

One-hoss-shay, The Wonder- 
ful, 254. 

11 Our Sumatra Correspond- 
ence," 116. 

P. 

Pail, the white pine, of water, 

202. 
Parallelism, without identity, 

in oriental and occidental 

nature, 240. 
Parentheses, dismount the 

reader, 177. 
Parson Turell's Legacy, 297. 
Path, the long, 279. 
Pears, men are like, in coming 

to maturity, 80. 
Phosphorus, its suggestions, 

13- 

Photographs of the Past, 245. 

Phrases, complimentary, ap- 
plied to authors, what deter- 
mines them, 113. 

Pie, the young fellow treats dis- 
respectfully, 77 ; the Author 



324 



INDEX. 



takes too large a piece of, 
78. 

Pie-crust, poems, etc., written 
under influence of, 78. 

Pillar, the Hangman's, 284. 

Pinkney, William, 6. 

Pirates, Danish, their skins on 
church doors, 105. 

Plagiarism, Author's virtuous 
disgust for, 145. 

Pocket-book fever, 208. 

Poem — with the slight altera- 
tions, 44. 

Poems, alterations of, 44 ; have 
a body and a soul, 97 ; green 
state of, 100; porous like 
meerschaums, 102 ; post- 
prandial, the Professor's 
idea of, 224. 

Poet, my friend the, 97, 127, 
173, 179, 183, 223, 224, 
226. 

Poets love verses while warm 
from their minds, 99 ; two 
kinds of, 184; apt to act 
mechanically on their brains, 
187. 

Poets and artists, why like to 
be prone to abuse of stimu- 
lants, 192. 

Poetaster who has tasted type, 

293- 

Poetical impulse external, 98. 

Poetry uses white light for its 
main object, 48. 

Polish lance, 18. 

Poor relation in black bomba- 
zine, 28, 84, 99, 209, 264, 

Poplar, murder of one, 235. 



Port-chuck, his vivacious sally, 
178. 

Portsmouth, how not to pro- 
nounce, 287. 

Powers, little localized, breed 
conceit, 8. 

Preacher, dull, might lapse 
into quasi heathenism, 26. 

" Prelude," the Professor's, 
296. 

Prentiss, Dame, 201. 

Pride in a woman, 273. 

Prince Rupert's drops of liter- 
ature, 35. 

Principle, against obvious 
facts, 54. 

Private Journal, extract from 

* my, 248. 

Private theatricals, 40. 

Probabilities provided with 
buffers, 54. 

Profession, literary men should 
have a, 180. 

Professor, my friend the, 23, 
70, 78, 87, 106, 112, 119, 148, 
149 et seq., 174, 179 et seq., 
194, 196, 226, 243 et seq., 
254, 341 etseq. 

Prologue, 42. 

Public Garden, 275. 

Pugilists, when "stale," 156. 

Punning, quotations respect- 
ing, 12. 

Puns, law respecting, 10 ; what 
they consist in, 48 ; surrep- 
titiously circulated among 
the company, 253. 

Pupil of the eye, simile con- 
cerning, the Author dis- 
gorges, 144. 



INDEX. 



325 



Q. 

Quantity, false, Sidney Smith's 
remark on, 109. 



Race of life, the, report of run- 
ning in, 92. 

Races, our sympathies go nat- 
urally with higher, 64. 

Racing, not republican, 32. 

Raphael and Michael Angelo, 
205. 

Raspail's proof-sheets, 23. 

Rat des Salons a, Lecture, 55. 

Reading for the sake of talk- 
ing, 133; a man's and a 
woman's, 277. 

Recollections, trivial, essential 
to our identity, 210. 

Relatives, opinions of, as to a 
man's powers, 52. 

Repeating one's self, 6. 

Reputation, living on contin- 
gent, 59. 

Reputations, conventional, 35. 

"Retiring" at night, etiquette 
of, 209. 

Rhode-Island, near what place, 

235- 
Rhymes, old, we get tired of, 

17; bad to chew upon, 

291. 
Ridiculous, love of, dangerous 

to literary men, 88. 
Roses, damask, 229, 231. 
Rowing, nearest approach to 

flying, 169 ; its excellencies, 

169 ; its joys, 169. 



" Royal George," the, Cow- 

per's poem on, 283. 
Rum, the term applied by low 

people to noble fluids, 191. 

S. 

Saas-plates, 307. 

Saddle-leather compared to 
sole-leather, 166. 

"Sahtisfahction," a tepid ex- 
pression, 104. 

Saint Genevieve, visit to 
church of, 282. 

" Saints and their Bodies," an 
admirable Essay, 164. 

Santorini's laughing-muscle, 
194. 

Saving one's thoughts, 25. 

Schoolmistress, the, 30, 39, 59, 
84, 106, 115, 123, 124, 134, 
183, 184, 203 et seq., 209, 
212, 229, 240, 247, 268, 309 
etseq., 313. 

" Science," the Professor's in- 
ward smile at her airs, 
179. 

Scientific certainty has 
spring in it, 53. 

Scientific knowledge partakes 
of insolence, 53. 

Scraping the floor, effect of, 
48. 

Sea and Mountains, 265. 

Seed capsule (of poems), 201. 

Self-determining power, limi- 
tation of, 86. 

Self-esteem, with good ground, 
is imposing, 9. 

Self-made men, 19. 



326 



INDEX. 



Sermon, proposed, of the Au- 
thor, 84. 

Sermons, feeble, hard to listen 
to, but may act inductively, 
27. 

Sentiments, all splashed and 
streaked with, 231. 

Seven Wise Men of Boston, 
their sayings, 123. 

Shakspeare, old copy, with 
flakes of pie-crust between 
its leaves, 76. 

Shawl, the Indian blanket, 18. 

Shortening weapons and 
lengthening boundaries, 18. 

Ship, the, and martin-house, 
208. 

Ships, afraid of, 206. 

Shop-blinds, iron, produce a 
shiver, 269. 

Sierra Leone, native of, en- 
joying himself, 302. 

Sight, pretended failure of, in 
old persons, 173. 

Similitude and analogies, 
ocean of, 82. 

Sin, its tools and their handle, 
123 ; introduction to, 210. 

Smell, as connected with the 
memory, etc., 73. 

Smile, the terrible, 193. 

Smith, Sidney, abused by 
London Quarterly Review, 
89. 

Sneaking fellows to be re- 
garded tenderly, 221. 

Societies of Mutual Admira- 
tion, 2. 

Soul, its concentric envelopes, 
243- 



Sounds, suggestive ones, 213, 

214. 
Sparring, the Professor sees a 

little, and describes it, 171. 
Spoken language plastic, 25. 
Sporting men, virtues of, 34. 
Spring has come, 197. 
Squirming when old false- 
hoods are turned over, 

112. 
Stage-Ruffian, the, 50. 
" Stars, the, and the earth," 

a little book, referred to, 

268. 
State House, Boston, the hub 

of the solar system, 124. 
"Statoo of deceased infant," 

108. 
Stillicidium, sentimental, 77. 
Stone, flat, turning over of, 

no. 
Stranger who came with young 

fellow called John, 124, 

306. 
" Strap ! " my man John's 

story, 105. 
Strasburg Cathedral, rocking 

of its spire, 285. 
Striking in of thoughts and 

feelings, 132. 
Stuart, his two portraits, 20. 
Summer residence, choice of, 

267. 
Sun and Shadow, 38. 
Sunday mornings, how the 

Author shows his respect for, 

174. 
Swans, taking his ducks for, 

275- 
Swift, property restored to, 145. 



INDEX. 



327 



Swords, Roman and Ameri- 
can, 18. 
Sylva Novanglica, 238. 
Syntax, Dr., 233. 



T. 

Talent, a little makes people 
jealous, 3. 

Talkers, real, 142. 

Talking like playing at a mark 
with an engine, 26 ; one of 
the fine arts, 50. 

Teapot, literary, 60. 

The last Blossom, 161. 

The old Man Dreams, 65. 

The two Armies, 227. 

The Voiceless, 306. 

Theological students, we all 
are, 27. 

Thought revolves in cycles, 70 ; 
if uttered, is a kind of excre- 
tion, 196. 

Thoughts may be original, 
though often before uttered, 
7 ; saving, 25 ; shaped in con- 
versation, 25 ; tell worst to 
minister and best to young 
people, 28 ; my best seem 
always old, 29; real, knock 
out somebody's wind, 112. 

Thought-sprinklers, 25. 

Time and space, 268. 

Tobacco-stain may strike into 
character, 101. 

Tobacco-stopper, lovely one, 
101. 

Towns, small, not more mod- 
est than cities, 126. 



Toy, author carves a wonder- 
ful, at Marseilles, 180. 

Toys moved by sand, caution 
from one, 78. 

Travel, maxims relating to, 
280; recollections of, 281. 

Tree, growth of, as shown by 
rings of wood, 286 ; slice of 
a hemlock, 285 ; its growth 
compared to human lives, 
286. 

Trees, great, 232 ; mother idea 
in each kind of, 234 ; afraid 
of measuring-tape, 236 ; Mr. 
Emerson's report on, 236; 
of America, our friend's in- 
teresting work on, 238. 

Tree-wives, 232. 

Triads, writing in, 82. 

Trois Freres, dinners at the, 75. 

Trotting, democratic and fa- 
vorable to many virtues, 34 ; 
matches not races, 34. 

Truth, primary relations with, 

13- 
Truths and lies compared to 

cubes and spheres, 114. 
Tupper, 16, 311. 
Tupperian wisdom, 273. 
Tutor, my late Latin, his 

verses, 265. 

U. 

Unloved, the, 305. 

V. 

Veneering in conversation, 
143. 



328 



INDEX. 



Verse, proper medium for re- 
vealing our secrets, 58. 

Verses, album, 15 ; abstinence 
from writing, the mark of a 
poet, 202. 

Verse-writers, their peculiari- 
ties, 291. 

Violins, soaked in music, 102; 
take a century to dry, 103. 

Virtues, negative, 264. 

Visitors, getting rid of, when 
their visit is over, 16. 

Voice, the Teutonic maiden's, 
216; the German woman's, 
217 ; the little child's in the 
hospital, 218. 

Voices, certain female, 215; 
fearfully sweet ones, 215 ; 
hard and sharp, 217 ; people 
do not know their own, 219; 
sweet must belong to good 
spirits, 218. 

Voleur, brand of, on galley 
rogues, 105. 

Volume, man of one, 143. 

W. 

Walking arm against arm, 17 ; 
laws of, 69; the Professor 
sanctions, 166; riding and 
rowing compared,. 167, 
168. 

Wasp, sloop of war, 207. 

Watch-paper, the old gentle- 
man's, 212. 

Water, the white-pine pail of, 
201. 

Wedding, the, 313. 

Wedding-presents, the, 310. 



Wellington, gentle in his old 
age, 79. 

What we all think, 146. 

Will, compared to a drop of 
water in a crystal, 83. 

Willows in Maine, 288. 

Wine of ancients, 64. 

Wit takes imperfect views of 
things, 48. 

Woman, an excellent instru- 
ment for a nerve-player, 128 ; 
to love a, must see her 
through a pin-hole, 223; 
must be true as death, 
272 ; marks of low and bad 
blood in, 273 ; love-capacity 
in, 273 ; pride in, 273 ; why 
she should not say too much, 

273- 

Women, young, advice to, 46 ; 
first to detect a poet, 183 ; in- 
spire poets, 183 ; their praise 
the poet's reward, 183 ; all, 
love all men, 222; all men 
love all, 222; pictures of, 
222 ; who have weighed all 
that life can offer, 278. 

Woodbridge, Benjamin, his 
grave, 241, 243. 

World, old and new, compari- 
son of their types of organi- 
zation, 239. 

Writing, with feet in hot water, 
6 ; like shooting with a rifle, 
25. 



Yes ? in conversation, 17. 
Young Fellow called John, 52, 



INDEX. 



329 



62, 71, jj t 99, no, 174, 187, 
193, 194, 209, 219, 232, 253, 
259, 264, 307, 312. 

Young lady come to be finished 
off, 9. 

Youth, flakes off like button- 
wood bark, 153; American, 



not perfect type of physical 
humanity, 170 ; and age, 
what Author means by, 200. 



Zimmerman, 6. 



OCT 17 1900 



